
Class IE.^31i 

Book 5jI_ 

Goppghtl^? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



FOUR BEAUTIFUL BOOKS OF IDEAL 
THOUGHTS 

By the compilers of " Borrowings" 
Thirty thousand copies sold 

THOUGHTS." A charming collection of beau- 
tiful gems of thought. Cloth, $1.25. Ooze 
leather, $2.00. 

BORROWINGS." Uniform with "Thoughts." 
Cloth, $1.25. Ooze leather, $2.00. 

'MORE BOROWINGS." A companion volume 
to "Borrowings." Cloth, $1.25. Ooze leather, 



QUOTATIONS ON NATURE 

OUT-OF-DOORS." A charming book of quo- 
tations selected from the leading writers on 
Nature. Cloth^ $1.25. Ooze leather, $2.00. 
Fully illustrated. 




c& c& 









l|^se^ are tl)ep 
tDi)§ babe t!)e gift of 
making trientis. for 
it is one' of (!^oti*s 
best gifts* It m 
bolbes manp tf)iitgs, 
but, abobe all tije 
potner of going out 
of one*s self, anb 
appreciating b3{)at' 
eber is noble anb 
lobing in anotj)er. 



— C|)omafi{ pnzlti 



A COLLECTION OF 
HELPFUL AND BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS 



Selected and Compiled 

by the 

Ladies of the Fabiola Hospital Association 

Oakland, California 




%\^t J^oDge ^©ublijSl^tng Company 

^pafeers? of llBeautiful Boofesf 
jl^etD Ipork Cit^ 



THE LIBRARY 9F 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAR 18 1903 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS ^ »(c No. 

COPY B. 



.r-i 



The Compilers beg to tender grateful appreciation to 
Edwin Markham, and McClure, Phillips & Co., for the use 
of selections from ** Lincoln and Other Poems;" to Dodd, 
Mead & Co., for selections from Hamilton Wright Mabie's 
"Before My Library Fire," "In the Forest of Arden," and 
other publications ; to William H. Hearst, the San Francisco 
Examiner^ and many others, for the use of poems and selec- 
tions of which they own the copyright. 



1-- 



Copyrighted, 1903 
By 

JESSIE K. FREEMAN, EVELYN STEVENS WILSON 

and 

SARAH S. B. YULE 






Flowers mark the progress of the seasons ; thoughts 
the progress of the soul. — M. A, E. Benton. 



To choose the best is the art of existence. 

— David Star Jordan. 
7 



■ 



For Thy Good Cheer 9 

It is ours to make the unknown future brighter 
Than the fairest dreams of all the dreamers ; 
Ours to see the vision and fulfill it. 
Fairer than we dream of, fairer even 
Than the shining eyes of hope can see it. 

— Rhoda Tucker Frick. 



Now is the time ! Ah, friend, no longer wait 

To scatter loving smiles and words of cheer 
To those around whose lives may be so drear, 
They may not need you in the coming: year. 
Now is the time ! " 



" Whatever the weather may be," says he, 

" Whatever the weather may be. 
It's the songs ye sing, an' the smiles ye wear. 
That's a-makin' the sun shine everywhere." 

— James Whitcomh Riley. 



Like tides on a crescent sea-beach, 
When the moon is new and thin, 
Into our hearts high yearnings 
Come welling and surging in; 
Come from the mystic ocean. 
Whose rim no foot has trod — 
Some of us call it longing, 
And others call it God. 

— William Herbert Carruth. 



lo For Thy Good Cheer 

There is a ship named Sometime ; 

Men dream of it, and wait ; 
One on the shore, impatient, 

One at the household gate. 
Thinking : ''If it come not in the morn, 

Then in the evening it may." 
But one I knew, not thinking of ships. 

Worked till the close of day. 
Lifting his eyes at evening time, 

There his ship at anchor lay. 

— Irene Hardy. 
Turn not in vain regret 
To thy fond yesterdays. 
But rather forward set 
Thy face toward the untrodden ways. 
Open thine eyes to see 
The good in store for thee, — 
New love, new thought, new service too 
For Him who daily maketh thy life new. 
Nor think thou aught is lost 
Or left behind upon the silent coast 
Of thy spent years : 
Give o'er thy faithless fears. 
Whate'er of real good, — 
Of thought, or deed, or holier mood, — 
Thy life hath known, 
Abideth still thine own. 
And hath within significance 
Of more than Time's inheritance. 
Thy good is prophecy 
Of better still to be. — F. L. Hosmer. 



For Thy Good Cheer ii 



" Sleep is a generous thief, he gives to Vigor what 
he takes from Time." 

The test of your Christian character should be that 
you are a joy-bearing agent to the world. 

— Beecher. 

" To widen your life without deepening it is only to 
weaken it." 

In the cultivation of soul, we are entirely our own 
master. Who is to say us nay, if we wish to grow and 
expand in tenderness, thoughtful consideration for 
others, love ? — Thomas Van Ness. 

** Any one can carry his burden, however heavy, till 
nightfall. Any one can do his work, however hard, for 
one day. Any one can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, 
purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life 
ever really means." 

Why do we so often prefer to believe in the necessity 
of suffering and weakness rather than in the possibility 
of strength and gladness ? — C. B. Newcomb. 

" Dis is a purty 'bligin* oV worl'," said Uncle Eben, 
" an' if you let's it git giner'ly known dat's you's look- 
ing fob trouble, its mighty li'ble to 'commodate you." 



12 For Thy Good Cheer 



OPPORTUNITIES. 

Have we all learned the lesson of grasping opportu- 
nities the moment they appear ? A lady was seated 
under a large tree reading a very interesting book. 
Suddenly the wind brought a beautiful many-tinted 
autumn leaf and laid it by her side. She noticed it and 
said to herself, " What a lovely leaf ! I must not for- 
get to pick it up after I finish this chapter." But when 
she finished that chapter and looked for the leaf — it 
was gone. If the wind could have spoken I fancy it 
would have said, '' Madam, I brought the leaf and 
placed it where you could secure it by merely reaching 
out your hand. But you chose to leave it until a more 
convenient time ; therefore I have sent it away, where 
though you search forever, you will never find it again ; 
and even if, after many days' searching, you could find 
it, it would not be the same, for the beautiful tints 
would be gone." 

Compare the story of the leaf with our opportuni- 
ties. — Flora G, Everest. 

" The careless use of other people's names is one of 
the evidences of untrained thought." 

Would you have your friend live a better life ? Pic- 
ture only that better life in your thoughts of him and 
never by word or look emphasize the opposite." 



For Thy Good Cheer 13 



To him who has an eye to see, there can be no fairer 
spectacle than that of a man who combines the posses- 
sion of moral beauty in his soul with outward beauty 
of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the for- 
mer because the same great pattern enters into both. 

— Plato. 
Things without remedy, 

Should be without regard : what's done is done. 

— Shakespeare. 

"If you are an invalid, do your best to get well ; but, 
if you must remain an invalid, still strive for the un- 
selfishness and serenity which are the best possessions 
of health. There are no sublimer victories than some 
that are won on sick beds." 



14 For Thy Good Cheer 



Live not without a friend : The Alpine rock must own 
Its mossy grace or else be nothing but a stone. 

— W, W. Story. 



For Thy Good Cheer 15 



THE SOUL OF LIFE. 
To live for common ends is to be common. 
The highest faith makes still the highest man ; 
For we grow like the things our souls believe, 
And rise or sink as we aim high or low. 
No mirror shows such likeness of the face 
As faith we live by of the heart and mind. 
We are in very truth that which we love ; 
And love, like noblest deeds, is born of faith. 
The lover and the hero reason not, 
But they believe in what they love and do. 
All else is accident, — this is the soul 
Of life, and lifts the whole man to itself. 
Like a keynote, which, running through all sounds, 
Upbears them all in perfect harmony. 

— /. L. Spaulding. 



i6 For Thy Good Cheer 



Find your niche and fill it. If it be never so little, 
if it is only to be hewer of wood and drawer of water, 
do something in this great battle for God and truth. 

— Spurgeon. 

Finish every day and be done with it. You have 
done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities 
no doubt, crept in ; forget them as soon as you can. 

— Emerson, 

Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so 
till this evening, or next month, or next year ? Then 
why destroy present happiness by a distant misery 
which may never come at all ? Every substantial grief 
has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your 
own making. — Sydney Smith. 

" Care is the lot of Hfe, and he that aspires to great- 
ness in hopes to get rid of it is like one who throws 
himself into a furnace to avoid the shivering of an 
ague." 

What men want is not talent, it is purpose ; not the 
power to achieve, but the will to labor. 

— Bulwer Lytton. 

He only is rich who owns the day ; and no one owns 
the day who allows it to be invaded with worry and 
fret and anxiety. — Emerson. 



For Thy Good Cheer 17 



Then you think the Judge will be satisfied if you say, 
" Lord, I had so many names in my visiting book, and 
so many invitations that it was impossible for me to at- 
tend to these things ?" — George Macdonald. 

Hard may be Duty's hand ; but lo, it leads 

Out into perfect joy, where pain shall cease ! 

God sees thy striving, and thy patience heeds ; 
And thou shalt find his peace. 

— Celia Thaxter. 

A little thinking shows us that the deeds of kindness 
we do are effective in proportion to the love we put into 
them. More depends upon the motive than upon the 
gift. If the thought be selfish, if we expect compensa- 
tion, or are guilty of close calculation, the result will be 
like the attitude of mind which invited it. 

— Dresser, 

" If bitterness has crept into the heart in the friction 
of the busy day's unguarded moments, be sure it steal 
away with the setting sun. Twilight is God's interval 
for peacemaking." 

Good impulses and good intentions do not make 
action right or safe. In the long run, action is tested 
not by its motives, but by its results. 

— David Starr Jordan, 



i8 For Thy Good Cheer 




Our destiny is our own and it must be worked out — 
perhaps in fear and trembling — in our own way. If 
there be a cherished American doctrine the controlling 
question must be : Is it right ? If yea, then let us 
stand by it like men ; if nay, have done with it and 
move forward to other issues. 

— William McKinky* 



For Thy Good Cheer 19 

The man who has begun to live more seriously 
within begins to live more simply without. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

Occasionally you find a woman in society who is so 
frank and honest that when you talk to her your trouble 
seems to grow small and your heart big. She has not 
a great deal of intellect, but then she has a great deal of 
common sense. Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 

Let us not concern ourselves about how other men 
will do their duties, but concern ourselves about how 
we shall do ours. — Lyman Abbott. 

However good you may be you have faults ; how- 
ever dull you may be you can find out what some of 
them are, and however slight they may be you had 
better make some — not too painful, but patient efforts 
to get rid of them. — Ruskin. 

Contentment comes neither by culture, nor by wish- 
ing; it is a reconciliation with ones lot, growing out of 
an inward superiority to our surroundings. 

— /. K. McLean. 

Do we know ourselves or what good or evil circum- 
stances may bring from us? Thrice fortunate is he to 
whom circumstances is made easy, whom Fate visits 
with gentle trial, and Heaven keeps out of temptation. 

— Thackeray. 



20 For Thy Good Cheer 



However the battle is ended, 

Though proudly the victor comes 
With fluttering flags and prancing nags 

And echoing roll of drums, 
Still truth proclaims this motto 

In letters of living light — 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

Though the heel of the strong oppressor 

May grind the week in the dust. 
And the voices of fame with one acclaim 

May call him great and just, 
Let those who applaud take warning 

And keep this motto in sight — 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 



For Thy Good Cheer 21 



Let those who have failed take courage, 

Though the enemy seem to have won, 
Though his ranks be strong, if he be in the wrong. 

The battle is not yet done. 
For sure as the morning follows 

The darkest hour of the night, 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

O man bowed down with labor, 

O woman young, yet old, 
O heart oppressed in the toiler's breast 

And crushed by the power of gold, 
Keep on with your weary battle 

Against triumphant might; 
No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 



22 For Thy Good Cheer 

"Knowing that all things are in God's hand, and 
that God's hand is in all things." 

I look to thee in every need, 

And never look in vain; 
I feel thy strong and tender love, 

And all is well again ; 
The thought of thee is mightier far 
Than sin and pain and sorrow are. 

Discouraged in the work of life, 

Disheartened by its load. 
Shamed by its failures or its fears, 

I sink beside the road; 
But let me only think of thee 
And then new heart springs up in me. 

Thy calmness bends serene above 

My restlessness to still; ||||| 



Around me flows thy quickening Hfe, 

To nerve my faltering will; 
Thy presence fills my solitude, 
Thy providence turns all to good. 

Embosomed deep in thy dear love. 

Held in thy law, I stand ; 
Thy hand in all things I behold, 

And all things in thy hand; 
Thou leadest me by unsought ways. 
And turn'st my mourning into praise. 

— Samuel Longfellow, 



m 



For Thy Good Cheer 23 



Weakness on both sides, is we know, the motto of 
all quarrels. — Voltaire 

Every man stamps his value on himself; the price 
we challenge for ourselves is given us. — Schiller, 

You are either a magnet that attracts all things 
bright, desirable, healthy and joyous — or one that 
draws all things disagreeable, gloomy, unhealthy and 
destructive. — Qi^igl^y- 

It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought 
of man's death hallows him anew to us ; as if life were 
not sacred too — as if it were comparatively a light 
thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who 
has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all 
our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is 
spared that hard journey. — George Eliot. 

Here you stand at the parting of the ways; some 
road you are to take; and as you stand here, consider 
and know how it is that you intend to live. Carry no 
bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities and 
strifes into this New Year. Leave these behind, and 
let the Dead Past bury its Dead; leave them behind, 
and thank God that you are able to leave them. 

— Ephraim Peabody, 



24 For Thy Good Cheer 



FRET NOT THYSELF. 

The sharp little vexations, 
Why not take all to the Helper 

And the briers that catch and fret, 

Who has never failed us yet? 
Tell him about the heartache. 

And tell him the longings too; 
Tell him the baffled purpose 

When we scarce know what to do; 
Then, leaving all our weakness 

With the One divinely strong, 
Forget that we bore the burden 

And carry away the song. 

— Phillips Brooks. 



For Thy Good Cheer 25 



It is only when people begin to care for each other 
that the fineness of human nature is seen. As long as 
you don't love anybody much, your character is like a 
garden in winter, one virtue is under a glass shade, and 
another is covered over with straw, and all of them are 
pinched and sickly. Then love comes by, and it is sum- 
mer ; and your garden rejoices and blossoms like a 
rose, without your bothering about it. 

— Bllen Thorneycroft Fowler. 



26 For Thy Good Cheer 



A SHRINE. 

She sits and sews in the window there, 

The sunshine round her lingers, 
Just touching her braids of bright brown hair 

And slender busy fingers. 
And she fashions garments fair and fine 
For the dear little Baby — hers and mine. 
Her swift, white fingers can scarce keep pace 

As down the years she glances, 
And sews into folds of mull and lace 

Her own sweet thoughts and fancies. 
And her eyes are bright with light divine 
As she croons to the baby — hers and mine. 
She drops her work when the daylight dies — 

I see them rocking, rocking — 
There are dimpled arms, two dear, dark eyes, 

A wee blue shoe and stocking; 
And my heart bends low before the shrine 
Of my wife and the Baby — hers and mine. 

— Alice E, Allen. 



For Thy Good Cheer 27 



There is but one good fortune to the earnest man. 
This is opportunity; and sooner or later, opportunity 
will come to him who can make use of it. 

— David Starr Jordan. 

"A man owes his first duty to himself, and that duty 
is to be gentle in his acts, and moderate in his judg- 
ments. Thus does he conserve his strength over against 
the time when it is most needed, stands ready to seize 
opportunity when it comes his way." 

So every sweet with soure is tempered still, 
That maketh it be coveted the more; 
For easie things, that may be got at will, 
Most sorts of men doe set but little store. 

— Edmund Spencer, 

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever 
come by caring very much about our own pleasures. 
We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes 
along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts 
and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as 
ourselves. — George Eliot. 

"Once open the door to trouble, and its visits are 
three-fold; first anticipation; second, in actual pres- 
ence; third, in living it over again. Therefore never 
anticipate trouble, make as little of its presence as pos- 
sible forget it as soon as past." 



28 For Thy Good Cheer 



"True greatness never happens. Man can conquer 
physical forces for succeeding generations, but battles 
of the soul no man can fight for another. There is no 
greater victory in life than the victorious old age, but 
it can be attained only by those who have learned to 
conquer in the years of strength and power. They and 
they alone can win the " consummate triumph." 

Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. 
In the assurance of strength there is strength, and 
they are weakest, however strong, who have no faith 
in themselves, or their powers. — Borle. 



For Thy Good Cheer 29 



WHEN MY SHIP COMES IN. 

Summer and winter are one to me, 
And the day is bright, be it storm or shine. 
For far away, o'er a sunny sea, 
Sails a treasure vessel, and all is mine. 
I see the ripples that fall away 
As she cleaves the azure waves before ; 
And nearer, nearer, day by day, 
Draws the happy hour when she comes to shore. 
'But what if she never comes?" you say, 
'If you never the honor, the treasure gain?" 
It has made me happier, day by day. 
It has eased full many an aching pain ; 
It has kept the spirit from envy free, 
Has dulled the ear to the world's rude din. 
Oh! best of blessing it's been to me. 
To look for the hour when my ship comes in. 

— Whitelaw Reid, 



30 For Thy Good Cheer 

Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of 
grief is the blunder of a life. — Disraeli, 

Any one, a fool or an idiot, can be exclusive. It 
comes easy. It takes and it signifies a large nature to 
be universal^ to be inclusive. 

— Ralph Waldo Trine. 

To be happy is not the purpose of our being, but to 
deserve happiness. — Fichte. 

To seek knowledge is better than to have knowledge. 

— David Starr Jordan. 

The tissues of life to be^ we weave with colors all our 

own, 
And in the field of destiny, we reap as we have sown. 

— Whittier. 

If a good face is a letter of recommendation, 

A good heart is a letter of credit. — Bulwer. 

God is not dumb, that he should speak no more ; 
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness 
And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor ; 
- There towers the mountain of the Voice no less. 
Which who so seeks shall find; but he who bends 
Intent on manna still, and mortal ends. 
Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. 

— Lowell. 



For Thy Good Cheer 31 



So many little faults we find ! 
We see them, for not blind 
Is love ; we see them, but if you and I 
Perhaps remember them some by and by 
They will not be 

Faults then — grave faults — to you and me, 
But just odd ways, mistakes, or even less, 
Remembrances to bless. 

Days change so many things — yes, hours — 

We see so differently in suns and showers ; 

Mistaken words to-night 

May be so cherished by to-morrow's light ! 

We may be patient, for we know 

There's such a little way to go. 

— George Klingle. 

A happy-tempered bringer of the best 

Out of the worst ; who bears with what's past cure, 

And puts so good a face on't — wisely passive 

Where action's fruitless, while he remedies 

In silence what the foolish rail against. 

— Browning, 



32 For Thy Good Cheer 



LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE. 

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Great ening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road — 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy ; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
It was a stuff to hold against the world, 
A man to match our mountains, and compel 
The stars to look our way and honor us. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth ; 

The tang and odor of the primal things : 

The rectitude and patience of the rocks ; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 

The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; 

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves ; 

The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 

The loving-kindness of the wayside well ; 

The tolerance and equity of light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 

As to the great oak flaring to the wind — 

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 

That shoulders out the sky. 



For Thy Good Cheer 33 



And so he came. 
From prairie cabin up to Capitol, 
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on. 
Forevermore he burned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 
He built the rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow. 
The conscience of him testing every stroke. 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; 
And when the step of Earthquake shook the house, 
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold. 
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again 
The rafters of the Home. He held his place — 
Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down 
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs 
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills. 
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. 

— Edwin Markham. 



34 For ThyGood Cheer 

" What I aspired to be, 
And was not, comforts me." 
Music washes away from the soul the dust of every 
day life. — Auerbach. 

The world only needs that we learn the laws of the 
universe and co-operate with God, and the health and 
joy and power that come with health may be ours. 

— M. J. Savage. 

Who'er aspires unweariedly 

Is not beyond redeeming. — Goethe, 

What to us is gibe or frown ? 
WTiat have we to cast us down ? 
Soul! Arise! assume thy crown: 
Turn thy features from the wall, 
Make the stature grand and tall. 
See, the Lord is over all. 

— Richard Realf. 

All are not just because they do no wrong ; 

But he who will not wrong me when he may, 

He is truly just. I praise not them 

Who in their petty dealings pilfer not, 

But him whose conscience spurns a secret fraud. 

When he might plunder and defy surprise ; 

His be the praise who, looking down with scorn 

On the false judgments of the partial herd. 

Consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares 

To be, not to be thought, an honest man. 

— Philemon, 



For Thy Good Cheer 35 



The day is coming when no one will be called a 
Christian unless he lives for humanity as Jesus lived. A 
new life is stirring in the hearts and minds of men and 
women to-day. It is a new vision of the Christ. 

' — Dresser. 



36 For Thy Good Cheer 

Stand close to all, but lean on none, 

And if the crowd desert you, 
Stand just as fearlessly alone 

As if a throng begirt you, 
And learn what long the wise have known — 

Self flight alone can hurt you. 

— William S. Shurtleff. 

"Think of yourself as on the threshold of unpar- 
alleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before 
you. Achieve, achieve.'* 

Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that 
shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect. 

— Marcus Aurelius. 

The secret of the man who is universally interesting, 
is that he is universally interested. 

(Said of Dr. Holmes by Howells.) 

I have noticed that folk who had come to grief and 
quite failed, have the rules how to succeed in life more 
at their finger's ends than folk who have succeeded. 

— Thomas Hardy. 

So much love, so much life, — strong, healthy, rich, 
exulting, and abounding life. — R. W. Trine. 

" The cloudiest night has a hint of light 
Somewhere in its shadows hiding. 
And it's better far to hunt a star 
Than the spots on the sun abiding." 



For Thy Good Cheer 37 



TWENTY-ONE. 

My darling One-and-Twenty boy, 

Rise to your strong young feet, 
And look up in the April blue 

And feel that life is sweet. 

The man who cowers in the shade 

And watches for the cloud 
Will watch and shiver every hour 

Until his back be bowed. 

Ought there to be a sermon preached 

When one is twenty-one ? 
Mine is so short 'tis finished 

As soon as 'tis begun. 

Be happy, One-and-Twenty boy ! 

To be just as you should 
Be happy, happy, happy. 

And 'tis like you'll find you're good. 

Here's a motto, One-and-Twenty boy, 

Engrave it 'neath your crest ; 
The wisest man's the happiest one. 

The happiest one's the best." 

— Mrs, Frances Hodgson Burnett 



2,S For Thy Good Cheer 



A VALENTINE. 

If only I might sing 

Like birds in spring — 
Robin, or thrush, or wren, 

In grove or glen ; 

If only I might suit 

To harp or lute. 
To chime in tender time 

Some touching rhyme, — 

Then I'd hope in vain 

Thine ear to gain ; 
But now — I halt — I quail — 

Ah ! must I fail ? 

So small my skill to plead 

My earnest need, 
Love — love is all the plea 

I bring to thee. 

— Clinton Scollard. 



For Thy Good Cheer 39 

A LOST CHILD. 

Ye Cryer : 

Here's a reward for who'll find Love ! 

Love is a-straying 

Ever since Maying, 
Hither and yon, below, above. 

All are seeking Love ! 

Ye Hand-bill : 

Gone astray — between the Maying 

And the gathering of the hay, 
Love, an urchin ever playing — 

Folk are warned against his play. 

How may you know him ? By the quiver, 

By the bow he 's wont to bear. 
First on your left there comes a shiver. 

Then a twinge — the arrow's there. 

By his eye of pansy color. 
Deep as wounds he dealeth free ; 

If its hue have faded duller, 
'T is not that he weeps for me. 

By the smile that curls his mouthlet ; 

By the mockery of his sigh; 
By his breath, a spicy South, let 

Slip his lips of roses by. 



40 



For Thy Good Cheer 



By the devil in his dimple ; 

By his lies that sound so true ; 
By his shaft-sting, that no simple 

Ever culled will heal for you. 

By his beckonings that embolden ; 

By his quick withdrawings then ; 
By his flying hair, a golden 

Light to lure the feet of men. 

By the breast where ne'er a hurt '11 
Rankle 'neath his kerchief hid — 

What ? you cry : he wore a kirtle ? 
Faith ! methinks the rascal did ! 

Here's a reward for who '11 find Love ! 

Love is a-straying 

Ever since Maying, 
Hither and yon, below, above, 

I am seeking Love ! 



Cryer : H. C. Bunner 

Grub Street : 
Cry's Weddings : 
Burryings : Lost 
Childn, and right 
cheaply. 
Ye lid Knocker. 



ye finder pray'd 
to bring her to 



Master Corydon. 

Petticoat Lane.] 
H, C, Bunner, 



For Thy Good Cheer 41 



So here has been dawning another blue day ; 
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away ? 
Out of eternity this new day is born ; 
Into eternity at night will return. — T. Carlyle. 

Speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first 
visible form that it takes. As the thought, so the 
speech. To better one's life in the way of simplicity, 
one must set a watch on his lips and his pen. Let the 
word be as genuine as the thought, as artless, as valid ; 
think justly, speak frankly. — Charles Wagner. 

Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke 
up the unused path. — Scandinavian Edda. 

Fame without happiness is but a sorry jest at best. 
What matters it to a thirsty man if his empty cup be of 
gold, or silver, or of finest glass ? 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 
In everything that happens is there light; and the 
greatness of the greatest of men has but consisted in 
that they had trained their eyes to be open to every 
ray of this light. — Maurice Maeterlink. 



42 For Thy Good Cheer 



In the thought of a man lies ever his fate ; 
There is life in loving, and death in hate. 
We will rise or fall, we will soar or sink, 
Always and ever as we may think. 
And the key to all mysteries here or above — 
Aye ! the key to the Kingdom of God, is Love. 
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

We pass for what we are. Character teaches above 
our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their 
virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that 
virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 

— Emerson. 

While we sit brooding over our troubles and the 
hardships of our lot, the great world goes tranquilly on, 
the infinite sky hangs over us, the everlasting order 
abides, and " God is where he was." Can we not for- 
get or endure our pestering " insect miseries " for a 
little while in the presence of the eternal laws and 
eternal powers ? — Charles G. Ames. 



For Thy Good Cheer 43 



HOW LITTLE JOE NAMED THE BABY. 

He stood beside the cradle 

A tender, brooding care 
Watching with love-illumed eyes 

The baby brother there. 

He stood beside the cradle 

While busily without 
The mother plied her morning work 

The happy home about. 

Three moons had bloomed and faded 
Since '' Baby " earthward came, 

Nor yet with seeking far and near 
Was found a fitting name. 

Anon the door was opened — 

The mother paused and smiled, 

As face all tremulous with joy, 
Up spake the little child ; 



44 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Mamma, I've named the baby !" 
'' You have ? What is it Jo ? " 

" I'm going to call him God, Mamma, 
That 's the best name I know/' 

O depth of heavenly wisdom 

Alone to love unsealed — 
Hid from the wise and prudent tones 

And unto babes revealed. 

Wee prophet of the highest — 

Who touched thy little tongue 

To speak so clear the holiest thought 
That e'er was said or sung. 

The preaching of the pulpit 

Seems vague and far away 
Beside thy bolder faith that sees 

Immanuel to-day. 

Ah well, if in each other. 

As through the world we go. 

We saw what in that babe was seen 
And named by little Jo. 

— Frederick L. Hosmer, 



i 



For Thy Good Cheer 45 



Fear death ? — to feel the fog In my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place. 
The power of the night, the press of the storm. 

The post of the foe : 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form. 

Yet the strong man must go ; 
For the journey is done and the summit attained. 

And the barriers fall^ 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore. 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers. 

The heroes of old^ 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave. 

The black minute's at end. 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave. 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain. 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again. 

And with God be the rest! 

— Robert Browning, 



46 For Thy Good Cheer 



AWAY. 

I cannot say, and I will not say 
That he is dead. He is just away! 

With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand 
He has wandered into an unknown land 

And left us dreaming how very fair 
It needs must be, since he lingers there. 

And you — oh, you, who the wildest yearn 
For the old-time step, and the glad return — 

Think of him faring on, as dear 

In the love of There, as the love of Here. 

Think of him still as the same, I say. 
He is not dead — he is just away. 

The lines are from Riley's poem, written after the 
death of his little boy. 

— James Whitcomh Riley. 

"A fool praises himself; a wise man turns the job 
over to a friend." 

Give thanks for what is instead of dwelling upon 
what might have been. 

— Lucy H, M, Soulsby, 



For Thy Good Cheer 47 



Only weak natures consent to dwell among tomb- 
stones, and the losses of which they are the symbol; 
the strong drink wisdom and courage from the cu^ of 
sorrow, and move onward toward light and life. 

— Bishop Spaulding. 

The desire to look back over the past is a sign of age 
and weakness; we need to look forward, and develop 
into what we are capable of becoming. What heights 
are we striving to occupy now ? — E. J. Dinsmore.. 

True contentment depends not on what we have. A 
tub was large enough for Diogenes; but a world too 
little for Alexander. — Charles Caleb Colton. 

Four things a man must learn to do 
If he would make his record true: 
To think without confusion clearly ; 
To love his f ellowman sincerely ; 
To act from motives purely; 
To trust in God and heaven securely. 

— Henry Van Dyke. 



48 For Thy Good Cheer 



OLD AND NEW FRIENDS. 

" Make new friends, but keep the old ; 
Those who are silver, these are gold. 
New made friends, like new made wine. 
Age will mellow and refine. 
Friendships that have stood the test, 
Time and change, are surely best. 
Brow may wrinkle, hair turn gray. 
Friendship never owns decay ; 
For mid old friends kind and true 
We once more our youth renew. 
But, alas, old friends must die; 
New friends must their place supply. 
Then cherish friendship in your breast ; 
New is good, but old is best. 
Make new friends, but keep the old ; 
Those are silver, these are gold." 



For Thy Good Cheer 49 



MY WIFE. 

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, 

With eyes of gold and bramble-dew 

Steel-true and blade-straight 

The great artificer 

Made my mate. 

Honour, anger, valour, fire, 

A life that love could never tire, 

Death quench or evil stir. 

The mighty Maker 

Gave to her. 

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife 

A fellow-farer true through life — 

Heart-whole and soul-free 

The August Father 

Gave to me. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Go to the woods and hills! No tears 
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 

— Longfellow. 

I would not give up the mists that spiritualise our 
mountains for all the blue skies of Italy. 

— Wordsworth. 



50 For Thy Good Cheer 



Under the shadow of the twilight's wing, 
I heard a voice unto the heavens sing ; 
And suddenly from Heaven's window leaned 
The Stars to know the joy of listening. 

— Frank Dempster Sherman, 

One day at a time ! That 's all it can be ; 
No faster than that is the hardest fate ; 
And days have their limits, however we 
Begin them too early and stretch them too late. 

One day at a time! 
It 's a wholesome rhyme — 
A good one to Hve by; 
A day at a time. 

One day at a time ! Every heart that aches 
Knowing only too well how long they can seem ; 
But it 's never to-day which the spirit breaks, 
It 's the darkened future, without a gleam. 

— Helen Hunt Jackson. 

The rewards of great living are not external things, 
withheld until the crowning hour of success arrives; 
they come by the way — in the consciousness of grow- 
ing power and worth, of duties nobly met and work 
thoroughly done. Joy and peace are by the way. 

— Hamilton IV, Mabie, 



For Thy Good Cheer 51 



WHICH ARE YOU? 

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day. 
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say. 

Not the sinner and saint, for it 's well understood 
The good are half bad and the bad are half good. 

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth 
You must first know the state of his conscience and 
health. 

Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span 
Who puts on vain airs is not counted a man. 

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years 
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears. 

No, the two kinds of people on earth I mean 
Are the people who lift and the people who lean. 

Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses 
Are always divided in just these two classes. 

And oddly enough, you will find, too, I ween, 
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean. 

In which class are you? Are you easing the load 
Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road? 

Or are you a leaner, who lets others share 
Your portion of labor, of worry and care? 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



52 For Thy Good Cheer 



" I have to work like a slave/' said a good woman, 
weary with her worries, but the answer came from a 
more way- wise comrade : " Oh, but, my dear, you can 
work like a queen." — Francis Willard. 

Into the woods my Master went, 
Clean forspent, forspent! 
Into the woods my Master came. 
Forspent with love and shame; 
But the olives were not blind to Him, 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him, 
The thorn tree had a mind to Him, 
When into the woods He came. 

Out of the woods my Master went, 

And he was well content — 

Out of the woods my Master came, 

Content with death and shame, 

When death and shame would woo Him last. 

From under the trees they drew Him last, 

'Twas on a tree they slew Him last, 

When out of the woods he came. 

— Sidney Lanier. 

"Easter is becoming a universal festival, because 
more and more it expresses a universal hope." 



For Thy Good Cheer 53 

Hats off! 

Along the street there comes 

A blare of bugles, ruffle of drums, 

A flash of color beneath the sky ; 

Hats off! 

The flag is passing by ! 

Blue and crimson and white it shines 

Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines. 

Hats off! 

The colors before us fly ; 

But more than the flag is passing by. 

Sea fights and land fights, grim and great, 
Fought to make and to save the state ; 
Weary marches and sinking ships; 
Cheers of victory on dying lips ; 

Days of plenty and days of peace; 
March of a strong land's swift increase ; 
Equal justice, right, and law ; 
Stately honor and reverend awe; 

Sign of a nation great and strong 

To ward her people from foreign wrong; 

Pride and glory and honor, all 

Live in the colors, to stand or fall. 

Hats off! 

Along the street there comes 

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums ; 

And loyal hearts are beating high; 

Hats off! 

The flag is passing by! — H, H, Bennett, 



54 For Thy Good Cheer 



The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our 
consistency. But why should you keep your head over 
your shoulder? — Emerson. 

" The men who do things, and not the men who 
merely talk about things, are those who bless the 
world." 

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can 
walk, but after the council of his own bosom. Let him 
quit too much association, let him go home much, and 
establish himself in those courses he approves. 

— Emerson. 

But it may be in a diviner air, 

Transfigured and made pure, 

The harvest that we deemed as wholly lost 

Waits perfect and mature. 

And the faint heart, that now defeated grieves, 

May yet stand smiling mid abundant sheaves. 

— Mary L. Ritter. 

Booker Washington tells of a colored man in Ala- 
bama who uttered this prayer : " O, Lord, de cotton 
am so grassy, de work am so hard, and de sun am so 
hot, dat I b'lieve dat dis here darkey am called to 
preach." 



For Thy Good Cheer 55 



How poor are they that have not patience ! 
What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

— Shakespeare. 

To the extent that faculties are cultivated the chances 
of success are increased. 

— Charles A. Murdoch, 

All are needed by each one — 
Nothing is fair or good alone. 

— Emerson. 

Dark is the world to thee, 
Thyself art the reason why. 

— Tennyson. 

Do not spill thy soul, in running hither and yon, 
grieving over the misfortunes, the mistakes and the 
vices of others. The one person whom it is most nec- 
essary to reform is yourself. — Quigley. 

" He who goes down into the battle of life giving a 
smile for every frown, a cheery word for every cross 
one, and lending a helping hand to the unfortunate, is, 
after all^ the best of missionaries." 

Trust thyself ; every heart vibrates to that iron string. 

— Emerson, 



56 For Thy Good Cheer 



Friendship is a plant which can not be forced. True 
friendship is no gourd, springing in a night and with- 
ering in a day. — Charlotte Bronte. 



For Thy Good Cheer 57 



Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry 
meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to 
that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter 
abundant. — Washington Irving. 

When you are asked where and how is your little 
■achievement going into God's plan, point to your Mas- 
ter, who keeps the plans, and then go on doing your 
little service as faithfully as if the whole temple were 
yours to build. — Phillips Brooks. 

" Some men who marry and settle down would have 
done the world more good had they remained single 
and settled up." 

They that can walk at will 

Where the works of the Lord are revealed, 
Little guess what joy can be got 

From a cowslip out of the field ; 
Flowers to these ''spirits in prison" 

Are all they can know of the spring, 
They freshen and sweeten the wards, 

Like the waft of an angel's wing. 

— Tennyson. In the Children's Hospital. 
Every expansion of civiHzation makes for peace. In 
other words, every expansion of a great civilized power 
makes for law, order, and righteousness. 

— President Roosevelt. 



58 For Thy Good Cheer 



Come over on the sunny side of life. There is room 
there for all, and it is a matter of choice. 

— Barnetta Brown. 



For Thy Good Cheer 59 

The size of this world is the size which each person 
by his thought makes it. In a book pubUshed about a 
year ago of a course of lectures given at the Lowell In- 
stitute, the writer says that " the size of the universe 
depends upon the range of human interests. The with- 
drawal of interest from any phase of reality means 
practically the extinction of that phase for that person. 
Dead interests mean a dead universe." What an appal- 
ling thought is this ! If we withdraw our interest from 
all phases we have no world at all! And yet it is an 
inspiration ; for if the statement is true, then it is a fact 
that we each live in a world of our own selection, our 
own choice. Of course, many a person is tied down by 
inevitable, or what seem to be inevitable, circumstances, 
contrary to the nature of that person. But, after all, 
those environments do not determine the size of his 
world. His attitude toward those surroundings is the 
measuring-scale — E. /. Daniels. 

" There is no use arguing with the inevitable ; the 
only argument with an east wind is to put on your 
overcoat." 

The supreme test of education is good health, mental 
health, spiritual health, physical health. The aim of 
all sound education is to make health abound. 

— Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 

The Jewish Rabins have a proverb that ten Rabs of 
speech descended into the world and the women took 
away nine of them. — Poor Robin, A. D., 1710. 



6o For Thy Good Cheer 

Art thou little, do thy little well, and 

For thy comfort know 
The biggest man can do his biggest work 

No better than just so. — Goethe. 

I am sure it is a great mistake always to know 
enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug 
and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of 
loveliness. — Adeline Knapp, 

There is no spectacle so depressing as the ruins of a 
house that has never been finished. The ruins of houses 
that have had their day and been lived in are often rest- 
ful, and beautiful, and picturesque ; but the decay of a 
building that has been begun and not completed, is one 
of the most ghastly and hideous objects on the face of 
the earth. So many lives seem to me like that. 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, 

The best is yet to be 

The last of life^ for which the first was made. 

— Browning. 

This is eternity now; you are sunk as deep in it, 
wrapped as close in it as you ever will be. The future 
is an illusion; it never arrives; it flies before you as 
you advance. Always it is to-day — and after death 
and a thousand years it is to-day. You have great 
deeds to perform and you must do them now. 

— Charles Ferguson. 



For Thy Good Cheer 6i 



KEEP A-GOIN'. 

If you strike a thorn or rose. 

Keep a-goin'! 
If it hails, or if it snows, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
'Tain't no use to sit and whine 
When the fish ain't on your Une ; 
Bait your hook an' keep on tryin', — 

Keep a-goin'! 

When the weather kills your crop, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
When you tumble from the top, 

Keep a-goin' ! 
S'pose you're out o' every dime? 
Gettin' broke ain't any crime ; 
Tell the world you're feelin' prime! 

Keep a-goin'! 

When it looks like all is up. 

Keep a-goin'! 
Drain the sweetness from the cup. 

Keep a-goin'! 
See the wild birds on the wing ! 
Hear the bells that sweetly ring! 
When you feel like sighin', — sing! 

Keep a-goin'! 



62 For Thy Good Cheer 



It is easier to think right than to do right." 



For Thy Good Cheer 63 



" LABORARE EST DRARE." 

"Labor is worship!" the robin is singing; 
"Labor is worship !" the wild bee is ringing. 
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing 

Speaks to thy soul from our nature's great heart. 
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower ; 
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower; 
From the small insect^ the rich coral bower ; 

Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part. 

Labor is life ! T is the still water faileth ; 

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; 

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens; 

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune. 



64 For Thy Good Cheer 



Labor is rest — from the sorrows that greet us, 
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, 
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us. 

Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
Work ; and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow. 
Work ; thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow. 
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow ; 

Work with a stout heart and resolute will ; 

Labor is health! Lo! the husbandman reaping, 
How through his veins goes the life current leaping ! 
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping. 

True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides. 
Labor is wealth — in the sea the pearl groweth ; 
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth; 
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth; 

Temple and statue the marble block hides. 

Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round 

thee! 
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee ; 
Look to you pure heaven smiling beyond thee ; 

Rest not content in thy darkness, a clod ! 
Work — for some good, be it ever so slowly; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly; 
Labor ! — All labor is noble and holy ; 

Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God. 

— Frances S. Osgood. 



For Thy Good Cheer 65 



He is a wise man who does not grieve for the thing 
which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. 

— Epictetus. 

We may be sure there is deUverance from every un- 
favorable condition of our Hves when we have fitted 
ourselves to accept it. — Charles B. New comb. 

The deeper the feeling the less demonstrative will 
be the expression of it. — Balzac. 

"The habit of helplessness begins early. It grows 
and with many men becomes fixed before the voting 
age. The first symptom is the dodging of responsibil- 
ity, the effort to unload on to somebody else." 

" The Indian says that when a man kills a foe the 
strength of the slain enemy passes into the victor's 
arm. In the weird fancy lies the truth. Each defeat 
leaves us weaker for the next battle, but each conquest 
makes us stronger. Nothing makes a prison to a 
human life, but a defeated broken spirit. The bird in 
its cage that sings all the while is not a captive. God 
puts his children in no position in which he does not 
mean them to live sweetly and victoriously. So in any 
circumstances we may be "more than conquerors 
through him that loved us." — /. R. Miller. 



66 For Thy Good Cheer 

Sail forth; steer for the deep waters only — 
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with 

me; 
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to 

go. 
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all. 
O my brave soul! 
O farther, farther sail! 
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of 

God? 
O farther, farther, farther sail! 

— Walt Whitman. 

"There is not the slightest question to-day in the 
minds of the really intelligent that thought is a vital 
force — as powerful as electricity^ though slower in its 
results." 

Whom the heart of man shuts out, 
Sometimes the heart of God takes in, 
And fences them all round about. 
With silence 'mid the world's loud din. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but 
health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of 
mind in variety or facility of association. We need 
change of objects. Dedication to one thought is quickly 
odious. — Emerson, 



For Thy Good Cheer (^^ 



' 'Believe in yourself, believe in humanity, believe in 
the success of your undertakings. Fear nothing and 
no one. Love your work. Work, hope, trust. Keep 
in touch with to-day. Teach yourself to be practical 
and up-to-date and sensible. You cannot fail." 



68 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Each man contributes his spirit to his town, his 
community, and his home; every woman contributes 
her ideals, her convictions, and her nature to the cheer- 
fulness and courage or the depression and cowardice 
of her society, be it large as the country or limited as 
her home. It is therefore the bounden duty of every 
man and woman to put life, hope, faith into their fel- 
lows by putting these qualities into the common air." 

** A right good thing is prudence, 
And they are useful friends 
Who never make beginnings 
Until they see the ends. 
But give me now and then a man 
And I will make him king. 
Just to take the consequences. 
And just to do the thing." 

I wish that more of us had the courage to be poor ; 
that the world had not gone mad after fashion and 
display; but so it is, and the blessings we might have 
are lost in the effort to get those which lie outside the 
possible. — Alice Carey. 

I have no answer for myself or thee. 

Save that I learned beside my mother's knee; — 

All is of God that is or is to be, 

And God is good. — John G. Whittier. 



For ThyGood Cheer 69 



MOTHER AND CHILD. 

My child is lying on my knees 
The signs of Heaven she reads. 

My face is all the Heaven she sees. 
Is all the heaven she needs. 

I also am a child and I 

Am ignorant and weak 
I gaze upon the starry sky 

And then I must not speak. 

For all behind the starry sky 

Behind the world so broad 
Behind men's hearts and souls, doth lie 

The Infinite of God. 

Lo, Lord, I sit in the wide space 

My child upon my knee, 
She looketh up into my face 

And I look up to thee. 

— George Mac Donald. 



70 For Thy Good Cheer 



You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheer- 
ful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that 
pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is 
gained if you never allow yourself to say anything 
gloomy, ^"-Lydia Maria Childs, 



For Thy Good Cheer 71 



" Everybody knows that the sun has spots on it, and 
yet some people always expect a ten-year-old boy to be 
about perfect." 

"The working world understands that the only man 
who really knows things is the man who can do 
things." 

Certainly, in our little sphere, it is not the most active 
people to whom we owe the most, . . . It is the 
lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the 
calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to 
which we look, and out of which we gather the deep- 
est calm and courage. — Phillips Brooks. 

I ceased to think, to feel ; I had often lain thus under 
other trees, but never in such a mood as this. I was 
akin with , the vast and silent movement of things 
which encompassed me. I cannot translate into words 
the mystery and the thrill of that hour, when for the 
first time I gave myself wholly into the keeping of 
Nature, and she received me as her child. Unbroken 
repose, unlimited growth, inexhaustible life, measure- 
less force, unsearchable beauty — who shall feel these 
things and know that there are no words for them ? 
— Hamilton Wright Mabie, 



72 For Thy Good Cheer 



Refinement that carries us away from our fellow men 
is not God's refinement. — Henry Ward Beecher. 

True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It sim- 
ply consists in treating others just as you love to be 
treated yourself. — Lord Chesterfield. 

" I believe in the sacredness of the human body ; this 
transient dwelling place of a living soul, and so I deem 
it the duty of every man and woman to keep his or her 
body beautiful through right thinking and right living.'' 

In landscape the painter should give the suggestion 
of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the 
prose of nature, he should omit and give us only the 
spirit and splendor. In a portrait he must inscribe 
the character and not the features. — Emerson. 

" It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in 
order to make a failure of life ; simple inaction will ac- 
complish it. Nature has everywhere written her pro- 
test against idleness ; everything which ceases to strug- 
gle which remains inactive rapidly deteriorates. It is 
the struggle toward an ideal, the constant effort to get 
higher and further which develops manhood and char- 



" I would rather be able to appreciate things I can 
not have, than to have things I am not able to appre- 
ciate." 



For Thy Good Cheer 73 



Without the door let sorrow He, 
And if for cold it hap to die, 
We'll bury it in a Christmas pie, 
And evermore be merry! 

— Old Song. 

Of Christmas past, let us remember now 

Only the smiles, forgetting all the tears. 
Only the hopes, forgetting all the fears ! 

Life's way is all too long, that we should bow 
Beneath the ancient burdens of dead years. 

Of Christmas in the future, let us speak 

Only with courage, looking for the best ! 
Only with hope, leaving to faith the rest ! 

Life's day is all too short, that we should seek 
To dim its brightness at our own behest. 

And in the present Christmas, let us give 

All help, from care the suffering to release — 
All zeal, to share our happiness and peace! 

For life is long enough for love to live. 

And short enough for bitterness to cease." 

— C. J elf -Sharp, 



74 For Thy Good Cheer 



" The vision of God that a working soul gets, in the 
presence of right living, and of honest effort is the one 
great revelation of time." 

He who has conferred a kindness should be silent, 
he who has received one should speak of it. 

— Seneca. 

She does very well under the circumstances, but 
that's the trouble — she's always under a lot of them ; 
she never gets above the circumstances at all. 

— A. D. T. Whitney. 

That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily, 
but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by 
avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go 
out of our minds through avenues which we never 
voluntarily opened. — Emerson. 



For Thy Good Cheer 75 



Take time to speak a loving word 

Where loving words are seldom heard; 
And it will linger in the mind, 

And gather others of its kind, 
Till loving words will echo where 

Erstwhile the heart was poor and bare ; 
And somewhere on thy heavenward track 

Their music will come echoing back. 
And flood thy soul with melody. 

Such is Love's immortality. 



76 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Forever the sun is pouring his gold 

On a hundred worlds that beg and borrow; 
His warmth he squanders on summits cold, 

His wealth on the homes of want and sorrow. 
To withhold his largess of precious light 
Is to bury himself in eternal night ; 
To give 
Is to live." 

At every meal remember there are two guests to be 
fed, — the body and the mind. — Epictetus. 

For when the heart goes before like a lamp and 
illumines the pathway, many things are made clear 
that else lie hidden in darkness. — Longfellow. 

The true strength of every human soul is to be de- 
pendent on as many nobler as it can discern, and to be 
depended upon by as many inferior as it can reach. 

— Ruskin. 

You and I must not complain if our plans break 
down if we have done our part. That probably means 
that the plans of One who knows more than we do 
have succeeded. — E, E. Hale. 



For Thy Good Cheer 77 



I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high, 
between the horses' path and the wheel-track. ,One 
inch more to right or left had sealed its fate, or an inch 
higher, and yet it lived to flourish as much as if it had 
a thousand acres of untrodden space around it, and 
never knew the danger it incurred. It did not borrow 
trouble, nor invite an evil fate by apprehending it. 

— H. D. Thoreau, 

The years monotonous? The same old seasons, and 
weathers, and aspects of nature ? Never anything new, 
to admire or wonder at ? The monotony is in our eye- 
sight, which goes on seeing nothing but the common 
and invariable things; simply because, from long 
familiarty, these are the easy things to see. But these 
are only the frame of the picture ; the picture is never 
twice alike. — E. R. Sill. 

" A good word is as soon said as an ill one." 
Our deeds still travel with us from afar. 
And what we have been makes us what we are. 

— George Eliot. 

'' The vision of God that a working soul gets, in the 
presence of right living and of honest effort, is the one 
great revelation of time." 



78 For Thy Good Cheer 



It matters not how straight the gate, 
How charged with punishment the scroll: 
I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul. 

uyiE.Heniey 

Whate'er it is thou dost not use, will be 
A heavy burden and a load to thee : 
Only from what the present moment springs, 
Created in the present, profit brings. 

— Goethe. 



Our fathers' God ! from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand. 
We meet to-day, united, free. 
And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done 
And trust Thee for the opening one. 

— Whittier, 

Standeth God within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above His own. 

^ — Lowell. 



For Thy Good Cheer 79 



( 



IF I COULD LISTEN CLOSE ENOUGH. 

Sometimes in summer afternoons 

An undertone will fall, 
As if a hundred tongues must speak, — 

Must speak, and tell me all. 

O nature, dear interpreter, 

Would'st thou my sorrow heal? 

If I could listen close enough, 
What then, would'st thou reveal? 

When sinks the day behind the sea, 

And ships the harbor seek. 
If I could listen close enough, 

Perhaps the wave would speak. 



8o For Thy Good Cheer 



Or, when my garden's scented paths 

In moonlit silence lie, 
If I could listen close enough, 

The rose might testify. 

When fledglings stir within the nest 

As morn comes o'er the hill, 
Down deep among the water cress 

What says the lisping rill? 

As freshening winds invade the wood, 

And all the trees rejoice; 
How easy then to half expect 

The fir to find a voice. 

The lark pours out so glad a note. 

To joy my heart is stirred; 
If I could listen close enough. 

Perhaps he brings me word. 

Elizabeth Ballard-Thompson. 



For Thy Good Cheer 8i 



There is nothing noble in being superior to some 
other man. The true nobility is in being superior to 
your previous self. — Hindoo Sayings. 

The man that will steal for you will steal from you, 
if he gets a chance. — Theodore Roosevelt. 

He who has learnt on solid grounds to put some value 
on himself, seems to have renounced the right of under- 
valuing others. — Goethe. 

A woman lacking true culture is said to betray by 
her conversation a mind of narrow compass, bounded 
on the north by her servants, on the east by her chil- 
dren, on the south by her ailments and on the west by 
her clothes. — Burton Kingsland. 

Dare to be true ; nothing can need a lie, — 

A fault which needs it most grows two thereby. 

— George Herbert. 

"Ah! let us hope that to our praise 

Good God not only reckons 
The moments when we tread His ways, 

But when the spirit beckons, — 
That some slight good is also wrought 

Beyond self-satisfaction, 
.When we are simply good in thought. 

However we fail in action." 



82 For Thy Good Cheer 



We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, 
looking at that only. — Emerson. 

No man can conceal himself from his fellows, for 
everything he fashions or creates interprets him. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

Do not read newspapers column by column ; remem- 
ber they are made for everybody, and don't try to get 
what isn't meant for you. — Emerson. 

Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing com- 
bination of tender curves and spheric softness that ever 
stood for woman; yet if the lip have the least fulness 
that hints of the flesh, if the brow be insincere, if in 
the minutest particular the physical beauty suggests a 
moral ugliness, that sculptor — unless he be portraying 
a moral ugliness for a moral purpose — may as well give 
over his marble for paving stones. Time, whose judg- 
ments are inexorably moral, will not accept his work. 
For, indeed, we may say that he who has not yet per- 
ceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are con- 
vergent lines which run back into a common ideal 
origin, and who therefore is not afire with moral 
beauty just as with artistic beauty — that he in short, 
who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal 
frenzy in which the beauty of holiness and the holiness 
of beauty mean one thing, burn as one fire, shine as 
one light within him ; he is not yet the great artist. 

— Sidney Lanier, 



For Thy Good Cheer 83 



"If you are feeling sorry for yourself because life is 
monotonous, you are building the wall higher and 
higher which shuts you from the things you desire. 

Stop it ! 

Say each morning : 'This is to be an interesting and 
successful day for me/ If it does not prove to be, then 
say it the next morning and the next, until it comes 
true." 

Is it rainy, little flower ? 

Be glad of rain. 
Too much sun would wither thee : 

'Twill shine again. 
The clouds are very black, 'tis true, 
But just behind them shines the blue. 

— M. F. Butts. 

As I watch men of affairs, I find one set who, as they 
say, make one hand wash another. They are rushing 
round at one o'clock to pick up the funds to pay the 
note which falls due at two. I find another set more 
thoughtful who know to-day what they are to do next 
Friday — know, as they would say, where they shall be 
next Saturday — who are thus prepared in advance for 
any exigency. — E, E, Hale. 



84 For Thy Good Cheer 



Since few large pleasures are lent us on a long lease, 
it is wise to cultivate a large undergrowth of small 
pleasures. — Mary A. Livermore, 

Happiness, like mercy, is twice blessed; it blesses 
those who are most intimately associated in it, and it 
blesses all those who see it, hear it, feel it, touch it, or 
breathe the same atmosphere. 

— Kate Douglas Wiggins. 

Frank, generous conversation, with ability to be just 
as pleasant the next moment as if difference of opinion 
had not been expressed, helps each to see his or her 
mistakes, to understand whether he or she is acting 
from love of ambition, from obstinacy or for truth's 
sake. Homes must learn the impersonal art of discus- 
sion which makes the intellect grow, and leaves love 
and belief in others' sincerity untouched. 

— Kate G. Wells, 

God's poet is silence, his words are unspoken, 
And yet how profound, how full and how far ! 
It thrills you, and fills you with measure unbroken. 
And as soft and as fair and as far as a star. 

— Joaquin Miller. 

No one is really miserable who has not tried to 
cheapen life. — David Starr Jordan. 



For Thy Good Cheer 85 



No one is useless in this world who lightens the 
burden of it to anyone else. — Dickens. 



S6 For Thy Good Cheer 



"The character of our thinking determines the nature 
of our ideals." 

There is no day too poor to bring us an opportunity, 
and we are never so rich that we can afford to spurn 
what the day brings. Opportunities for character 
always bloom along the pathway of our duty and 
make it fragrant even when it is thorny. 

— Samuel J. Barrows. 

It is almost always when things are all blocked up 
and impossible that a happening comes. If you are 
sure you are looking and ready, that is all you need. 
God is turning the world round all the time. 

— A.D. T. Whitney. 

I am glad to think 

I am not bound to make the world go right, 

But only to discover and to do, 

With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints. 

— Jean Ingelow. 

No greater fortune can befall a child than to be born 
into a home where the best books are read, the best 
music interpreted, and the best talk enjoyed, for in 
these privileges the richest educational privileges are 
supplied. — Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 87 



Teach your children to understand the law of attrac- 
tion. Let them know that if they form certain habits, 
and continue them until they become thoroughly fixed 
in their minds, they have through the power of thought 
become related to all people thinking and doing the 
things that have occupied their attention. 

For instance, if it has been your habit to find fault 
with people, to criticise, through this habit of criticism 
all the fault-finding people of the world have become 
related to you. 

If you are in the habit of thinking kindly and saying 
kind words, in a short time you will become mentally 
related to all kindly natured people in the world, and 
you will have the force of their kind, loving thoughts 
pouring in upon you so that is will be easier for you to 
say a kind word than the reverse. 

By indulging in healthy thoughts you attract to your- 
self everything necessary to your well-being — happi- 
ness, health, strength and friends. 



88 For Thy Good Cheer 

"Don't tell me you are too old. 

Age is all imagination. Ignore years and they will 
ignore you." 

At sixty-two life has begun; 
At seventy-three begin once more; 
Fly swifter as thou nearest the sun, 
And brighter shine at eighty-four. 

At ninety-five 

Shouldst thou arrive, 
Still wait on God and work and thrive. 

— Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Don't get too near your enemy; he may turn out to 
be a good fellow. — Dorothea Moore. 

The railways are not laid along the old coach roads, 
but they bring us to the same places as the coaches did. 
You and I travel by different roads and our methods 
are not alike, yet both our ways lead up to Jerusalem, 
as all roads lead to Rome. 

— Ellen Thorneyeroft Fowler. 

Every success in life comes from sympathy and co- 
operation and love. — Benjamin Ide Wheeler. 

Let us devote ourselves anew to the service of good 
will. Let us resolve for the time to come to be consid- 
erate of all, the present and the absent; to be just to 
all; to be kindly affectionate to all. 

— N. L. Frothingham. 



For Thy Good Cheer 89 



TOMORROW AND YESTERDAY. 

Two sisters met in the darkness, 

To-morrow and Yesterday. 
One clasped the hand of the other, 

And softly was heard to say : 
Sweet are the moments now passing, 

There 's nothing left to regret ; 
But that to some I brought sorrow. 

Fills me with sadness yet." 

Sweet was the smile of To-morrow, 
Gently, so gently, she spake, 
"Fear not, fear not, little sister. 
Happiness for them, I'll make." 

Then in the darkness they parted. 
To-morrow and Yesterday; 

Away from the earth one traveled, 

To it one hastened her way* 



90 For Thy Good Cheer 



It is easier to preach ideals than to look facts 
squarely in the face. — Arthur T, Hadley, 



For Thy Good Cheer 91 

Blow not into a flame the spark which is kindled be- 
tween two friends. They are easily reconciled, and 
will both hate you. — From the German. 

You know it takes an awful sight of moral power 
for some of us to be even decent! I like to think of 
what Dr. Mason said : "The religion which will make 
John a saint will barely keep Peter from knocking 
a man down." — Eden Phillpotts. 

Study, and study hard. But never let the thought 
enter your mind that study alone will lead you to the 
heights of usefulness and success. 

— Grover Cleveland. 

Our opinion of people depends less upon what we 
see in them, than upon what they make us see in our- 
selves. — Sarah Grand. 

The higher the state of civilization, the more com- 
pletely do the actions of one member of the social body 
influence all the rest, and the less possible is it for any 
one man to do a wrong thing without interfering more 
or less with the freedom of his fellow citizens. 

— Huxley. 

Can any summary rule be given more than this : 
Every day and every hour to frame yourself with a 
view to getting over a weakness ? How a person does 
this can only be learned by experience, not, I think, to 
be intruded on by others, — Jowett. 



92 For Thy Good Cheer 



THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY'S BEGINNING. 

"I thank God for sunshine and bird-song, for the 
sweet morning Hght upon the hill-tops, and the tender 
eyes of my loved ones. The great world is awake and 
a-throb with hfe. I, too, am awake and life is pulsing 
through my veins. I have a part in the great world, in 
its work, its joy and its sorrow. To-day I can be a 
little center from which shall radiate peace, kindliness 
and good-will. I thank God for opportunity. A beau- 
tiful golden sunbeam has entered through my cham- 
ber window, and awakened me to the gladness and 
beauty of the morning. May my spirit be wakened 
and kindled by the Divine Spirit, so that all this day 
it may warm and gladden the hearts it touches." 



For Thy Good Cheer 93 

I play not here marches for victors only — I play great 
marches for conquered and slain persons. 

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? 

I also say it is good to fall — battles are lost in the 
same spirit in which they are won. 

I beat triumphal drums for the dead. . . . 

Vivas to those who have failed ! 

— Whitman. 

"King Hassan, well beloved, was wont to say. 
When aught went wrong, or any labor failed. 
To-morrow, friends, will be another day!' 
And in that faith he slept, and so prevailed." 

It is the test of fine character, as of fine singing, that 
the person displaying it, makes it seem, not a difficult 
thing well done, but the simplest thing in the world to 
do. — Alice Wellington Rollins. 

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of 
knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. 
We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough 
to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; 
unless we chew them over again, they will not give us 
strength and nourishment. — Locke. 

"Where grows the golden grain? 
Where faith? Where sympathy? 
In furrows cut by pain." 



94 For Thy Good Cheer 



"In spite of the stare of the wise and the world's 

derision, 
Dare follow the star-blazed road, dare follow the 

vision." 
The world is a vapor, and only the vision is real. 
Yea, nothing can hold against Hell, but the winged 

Ideal. — Edwin Markham. 

You must do the duty next your hand, that is cer- 
tain ; but of ten duties next your hand you are to choose 
that which you do most happily, which suits you best, 
or for which God fitted you. 

— Edward Everett Hale. 

God must have loved the common people, he made 
so many of them. — Lincoln. 

"The dignity of thinking is in labor, and the dignity 
of labor is in thinking." 

The clinching of good purposes with right actions is 
what makes the man. This higher heredity does not 
come from one's father or mother, but is the work of 
the man on himself. — David Starr Jordan, 



For Thy Good Cheer 95 



RESURRECTION. 

Daffodil, lily and crocus, 

They stir, they break from the sod, 
They are glad of the sun, and they open 

Their golden hearts to God. 

They and the wilding f amihes — 

Windflower, violet. May — 
They rise from the long, long dark 

To the ecstasy of day. 

We, scattering troops and kindreds, 
From out of the stars wind-blown 

To this wayside corner of space, 

This world that we call our own — 

We, of the hedgerows of Time, 

We, too, shall divide the sod. 
Emerge to the light, and blossom. 

With out hearts held up to God. 

— Charles G. D, Roberts, 



96 For Thy Good Cheer 



The moment you find yourself in an absolutely hope- 
less and despairing state of mind regarding your work 
— take a vacation. If only for a day — still take it. 
Let your brain rest by giving it new thoughts. You 
will return to work like one reborn. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps you 
are weak-handed ; but stick to it steadily, and you will 
see great effects, for "constant dropping wears away 
stones ; and by diligence and patience the mouse ate in 
two the cable; and little strokes fell great oaks." 

— Benjamin Franklin, 



For Thy Good Cheer 97 



Afraid? Of whom am I afraid? 

Not Death ; for who is he ? 
The porter of my father's Lodge 

As much abasheth me. 

Of Hf e ? Twere odd I fear a thing 

That comprehendeth me 
In one or more existences 

At Deity's decree. 

Of resurrection? Is the east 

Afraid to trust the morn 
With her fastidious forehead? 

As soon impeach my crown! 

— Emily Dickinson, 



98 For Thy Good Cheer 



"Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning, and 
the rest of the day will take care of itself." 

The only road to advancement is to do your work so 
well that you are always ahead of the demands of your 
position. Our employers do not decide whether we 
shall stay where we are or go on and up ; we decide 
that matter ourselves. Success or failure are not 
chosen for us; we choose them for ourselves. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

Nothing can work me damage but myself ; the harm 
that I sustain I carry about with me, and I am ever a 
real sufferer but by my own fault. — St. Bernard. 

Nothing can be done for the working-man. The at- 
tempt is and of right ought to be a failure. There is 
nothing but what can be done with a working-man, or 
any other man, if love incarnate is the propelling power 
and common sense guides the helm. 

— George L. McNutt. 

People are nearly always nice when one gets to know 
them, and pierces through the outer husks of artifi- 
ciality which they wear before the world. I detest 
heaps of people that I have only met at dinner; but I 
think I like everybody that I have ever had breakfast 
with. — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, 



For Thy Good Cheer 99 



Let us learn to be content with what we have. Let 
us get rid of our false estimates, set up higher ideals — 
a quiet home ; vines of our own planting ; a few books 
full of inspiration ; a few friends worthy of being 
loved ; innocent pleasures that bring no pain or sorrow. 

— David Swing. 



LLtlC.1 



loo For Thy Good Cheer 



THE SWEET COMMAND. 

''Love thy neighbor as thyself:" 
I've read it o'er and o'er. 

By Love's dear hand, 

A sweet command: — 
I love my neighbor more! 
I love her as the light that shines 
Kissing her red lips through the vines ! 

" Love thou thy neighbor as thyself :" 
I like that scripture sweet! 

I do fulfill 

That scripture's will 
With my heart's every beat! 
I love her as the glad winds race 
To roses smiling in her face! 

"Love thou thy neighbor as thyself:'^ 
Preach from the text no more ! 

The broad sea rolls 

Between our souls. 
And shore is far from shore> 
Yet still in grace my soul shall grow, — 
I love — I love my neighbor so ! 

— Frank L. Stanton, 



For Thy Good Cheer loi 



Such was my rule of life ; I worked my best, subject 
to ultimate judgment, God's not man's/ 

— Browning, 



I02 For Thy Good Cheer 



TO HARVEST JOY. 

We must not force events, but rather make 

The heart soil ready for their coming, as 

The earth spreads carpets for the feet of Spring, 

Or, with the strengthening tonic of the frost. 

Prepares for Winter. Should a July noon 

Burst suddenly upon a frozen world 

Small joy would follow, even tho' that world 

Were longing for the Summer. Should the sting 

Of sharp December pierce the heart of June, 

What death and devastation would ensue! 

All things are planned. The most majestic sphere 

That whirls through space is governed and controlled 

By supreme law, as is the blade of grass 

Which through the bursting bosom of the earth 

Creeps up to kiss the light. Poor, puny man 

Alone doth strive and battle with the force 

Which rules all lives and worlds, and he alone 

Demands effect before producing cause. 



For Thy Good Cheer 103 



How vain the hope! We cannot harvest joy 

Until we sow the seed. And God alone 

Knows when that seed is ripened. Oft we stand 

And watch the ground with anxious, brooding eyes, 

Complaining of the slow, unfruitful yield, 

Not knowing that the shadow of ourselves 

Keeps off the sunlight and delays results. 

Sometimes our fierce impatience of desire 

Doth like a sultry May force tender shoots 

Of half-formed pleasures and unshaped events 

To ripen prematurely, and we reap 

But disappointment; or we rot the germs 

With briny tears ere they have time to grow. 

While stars are born and mighty planets die. 

And hissing comets scorch the brow of space. 

The Universe keeps its eternal calm. 

Through patient preparation year on year 

The earth endures the travail of the Spring 

And Winter's desolation. So our souls, 

In grand submission to a higher law, 

Should move serene through all the ills of life, 

Believing them masked joys. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



I04 For Thy Good Cheer 



Submission then is not defeat: on the contrary it is 
strength. — Amiel. 

The trustworthiness of men trusted seems often to 
grow with the trust. — Woodrow Wilson. 

"Marrying a woman for money is generally a trifle 
risky, for you always get the woman and not always 
the money.'*' 

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it 
boldly ; if it be wrong, leave it undone. — Gilpin. 

Avoid the personal view, the small view, the critical 
and fault-finding view. Run away from gossip as from 
a pestilence, and keep in your soul great ideals and 
ideals to solace your solitude. They will drive out 
petty worries, conceits and thoughts of carking care. 

— Ada C. Sweet. 

God has not given us vast learning to solve all the 
problems, or unfailing wisdom to direct all the wan- 
derings of our brothers' lives, but He has given to 
every one of us the power to be spiritual, and by our 
spirituality to lift and enlarge and enlighten the lives 
we touch. — Phillips Brooks. 

Every new thought relates itself finally to all 
thought, and is like the forward step which continually 
changes the horizon about the traveler. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 



For Thy Good Cheer 105 

Strive constantly to concentrate yourself; never dis- 
sipate your powers ; incessant activity, of whatever 
kind, leads finally to bankruptcy. — Goethe. 

It is in every way creditable to handle the yardstick 
and to measure tape ; the only discredit consists in 
having a soul whose range of thought is as short as 
the stick and as narrow as the tape. 

— Horace Mann. 

The successful man takes plenty of time for thought. 
He carefully looks the ground over, searches for weak 
and strong points, then adjusts himself to the needed 
conditions. — Dresser. 

When any one has offended me, I try to raise my 
soul so high that the offense cannot reach it. 

— Descartes. 

Great men are the true men, the men in whom nature 
has succeeded. They are not extraordinary, they are 
in the true order. It is the other species of men who 
are not what they ought to be. — AmieVs Journal. 

The law of love, upon which all that relates to man is 
founded, declares that it is easier for man to be well 
and happy than to be the reverse. Try to see how 
much easier it is to go with the law than to put yourself 
in opposition to it. — Margaret Stowe. 



io6 For Thy Good Cheer 



"I thank God for his night. 

The stars are shining down upon the silent moun- 
tains and upon the whispering sea. The pulse of 
humanity is beating slowly and restfully. I too am a 
part of the All, God's All, and trust myself to the In- 
finite Care." 

NIGHT. 

Mysterious Night! when our first parents knew 
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name. 
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, — 
This glorious canopy of light and blue? 
Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came. 
And lo! creation widened in man's view. 
Who could hope through such darkness lay concealed 
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find. 
Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed. 
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind! 
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? 
If life can thus deceive wherefore not life? 

— Blanco White 



For Thy Good Cheer 107 

"Grief sharper sting doth burrow 

From regret: 
But yesterday is gone, and shall its sorrow 
Unfit us for the present and the morrow? 
Nay; bide a wee, an dinna fret." 

And thus looking within and around me ever anew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises 

it too) 
The submission of man's nothing perfect to God's all — 

complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet. 



Thoughts hardly to be packed 
Into a narrow act. 

Fancies that broke through language and escaped; 
All I could never be. 
All, men ignored in me, 

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher 
shaped. — Robert Browning. 

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue. He 
is nearest to the Gods who knows how to be silent even 
though he is in the right. — Cato, 

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can 
take it from him. — Franklin. 

The dispute about religion and the practice of it seU 
dom go together. — Young, 



io8 For Thy Good Cheer 

Genius seems to be allied to immortal youth. Goethe 

at eighty-four had the same deep interest in life that 

he felt at thirty or forty; and Gladstone at eighty-six 

is one of the most eager and aspiring men of his time. 

— Hamilton Wright Mabie. 

"A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a 
man ; kites rise against and not with the wind. " 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask 
no other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose; 
he has found it, and will follow it ! — Carlyle. 

"We cannot help liking positiveness ; the man who 
wilfully dangles in the air, hooked like a Hindu fakir, 
resting neither in heaven nor on the earth, is not a 
sight to inspire enthusiasm in others or to do any 
good." 

How soon the millennium would come if the good 
things people intend to do to-morrow were only done 
to-day. — Ram's Horn. 

Though we should be grateful for good houses, there 
is no house like God's out-of-doors. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Don't make too much of the faults and failings of 
those around you — even be good to yourself, and 
don't harry your soul over your own blunders and mis- 
takes. Ada C. Sweet. 



For Thy Good Cheer 109 

MY HARVESTS. 

I thought to have gathered many a bloom 

From a rose tree I planted one sweet spring day ; 

Ah me ! I forgot 

And watered it not, 
And the soft buds withered away. 

I thought as I looked at my heaped-up corn, 

"I will sow it broadcast — this rich golden grain !" 

Ah me ! I let it lay. 

And it withered away. 
And harvest time reaps me no gain. 

I thought that my friend would be mine always ; 
That his hand to my hand would cling close and fast. 

Ah me! I loosed hold 

On our friendship old, 
And his fingers slipped at last. 

I still wish for roses — my rose tree is dead ; 
I wish still for harvest — and hunger for bread; 
I cry for the old love — the old love is fled; 
I sowed not — I reaped not — God's judgment is said. 

— L. Hereward 

"Friendship suppHes the place of everything to those 
who know how to make the right use of it; it makes 
your prosperity more happy, and it makes your adver- 
sity more easy." 



no For Thy Good Cheer 



Love is the open sesame that lets in beauty, and gives 
us eyes to see. Then the sight of natural beauty stimu- 
lates our highest feeHngs, and we long for the one we 
love the most. — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, 



For Thy Good Cheer iii 

Much of our dissension is due to misunderstanding, 
which could be put right by a few honest words and a 
little open dealing. — Black. 

What men usually say of misfortunes, that they 
never come alone, may with equal truth be said of good 
fortune ; nay, of the circumstances which gather round 
us in a harmonious way, whether it arise from a kind 
of fatality, or that man has the power of attracting to 
himself things that are mutually related. 

— Goethe, 

"The unhappy are always wrong : wrong in being so, 
wrong in saying so, wrong in needing help of others." 

You will succeed best when you put the restless, 
anxious side of affairs out of mind, and allow the rest- 
ful side to live in your thoughts. 

— Margaret Stowe. 

Be not anxious about to-morrow. Do to-day's duty, 
fight to-day's temptation, and do not weaken and dis- 
tract yourself by looking forward to things which you 
cannot see, and could not understand, if you saw them. 

— Charles Kingsley. 

The first duty for a man is still that of subduing 
Fear. A man's acts are slavish, not true, but spacious ; 
his very thoughts are false, — till he have got Fear 
under his feet. — Carlyle, 



112 For Thy Good Cheer 

There are few things which bless and soothe the Hfe 
of others more, or do them more good, than the giving 
of thanks. It makes men feel that they are some use 
in the world, and that is one of the finest impulses to a 
better life. It cheers many a wearied heart with plea- 
sant hope and bids many a man who is sad in mood 
take courage. — Spofford Brooke. 

"The poorest people are not those who have to get 
much out of little, but those who get little out of much." 
" Hard thinking opens naturally to strong doing." 

If I do not keep step with my companions it is be- 
cause I hear a different drummer. Let a man step to 
the music he hears, however measured, or however far 
away. — Thoreau. 

If you are tempted to be angry, pause a moment and 
still the rising activities. Deal in the same way with 
the tendency to be annoyed, resentful or depressed. 
Remember that if you spare yourself these useless ex- 
penditures of force, you husband and increase your 
energy. — Dresser, . 

The faintest cheer sounds never amiss 
To the actor who once has had a hiss. 
And one who has dwelt with his grief alone 
Hears all the music in friendship's tone. 
So better and better I comprehend 
How sorrow ever would be our friend. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox., . 



For Thy Good Cheer 113 



TRUST. 

Searching for strawberries ready to eat; 
Finding them crimson and large and sweet ; 
What do you think I found at my feet, 
Deep in the green-hill side? 

Four brown sparrows, the cunning things, 
Feathered on back and breast and wings, 
Proud with the dignity plumage brings, 
Opening their four mouths wide. 

Stooping lower to scan my prize, 
Watching the motions with curious eyes; 
Dropping my berries in glad surprise, 
A plaintive sound I heard. 

And looking up at the mournful call, 
I spied on a branch near the old stone-wall, 
Trembling and twittering, ready to fall, 
The poor little mother-bird. 



114 For Thy Good Cheer 



' With grief and terror her heart was wrung, 
And while to the slender bough she clung, 
She felt that the lives of her birdlings hung 
On a still more slender thread. 

' ' Ah, birdie !" I said, "if you only knew 
My heart was tender and warm and true !" 
But the thought that I loved her birdlings, too, 
Never entered her small brown head. 

'And so through this world of o6rs we go. 
Bearing our burdens of needless woe, 
Many a heart beating heavy and slow 
Under its load of care. 

' But O, if we only, only knew. 
That God was tender, warm and true. 
And that he loved us through and through. 
Our hearts would be lighter than air." 



For Thy Good Cheer 115 



" I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day 
lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything." 



ii6 For Thy Good Cheer 

FERN SONG. 

Dance to the beat of the rain, little fern, 

And spread out your palms again 

And say, " Tho' the sun 

Hath my vesture spun. 

He had labored alas, in vain 

But for the shade 

That the cloud hath made. 

And the gift of the Dew and the Rain." 

Then laugh and upturn 

All your friends little Fern, 

And rejoice in the beat of the rain \" 

— John B. Tabb. 

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on 
one side. — La Rochefoucauld. 

One can stop easily when he ascends, but not when 
he descends. — Napoleon I. 

Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, 
thicker than gnats at sun down. We walk through a 
cloud of them. — Van Dyke. 

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business 
is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many 
other things. And it is not by any means certain that 
a man's business is the most important thing he has 
to do. — Robert Louis Stevenson, 



For Thy Good Cheer 117 



PUT-OFF TOWN. 

Did you ever go to Put-Off Town, 

Where the houses are old and tumbledown, 

And everything tarries and everything drags, 

With dirty streets and people in rags? 

On the street of Slow lives Old Man Wait, 

And his two little boys, named Linger and Late, 

With uncleaned hands and towsled hair. 

And a naughty little sister named Don't Care. 

Grandmother Growl lives in this town. 

With her two little daughters, called Fret and Frown ; 

And Old Man Lazy lives all alone 

Around the corner, on Street Postpone. 

To play all day in Tarry Street, 

Leaving your errands for other feet; 

To stop or shrink, or linger, or frown, 

Is the nearest way to this old town. 



ii8 For Thy Good Cheer 



WHERE DID IT GO? 

Where did yesterday's sunset go 
When it faded down the hills so slow — 
And the gold grew dim and the purple light 
Like an army with banners passed from sight? 

Will its flush go into the golden rod 
Its thrill to the purple aster's nod 
Its crimson fleck the maple-bough 
And the autumn-glory begin from now ? 

Deeper than flower fields sank the glow 
Of the silent pageant passing slow. 

It flushed all night in many a dream 

It thrilled in the folding hush of prayer 

It glided into a poet's song 

It is setting still in a picture rare; 

It changed by the miracle none can see 
To the shifting lights of a symphony; 
And in resurrection of faith and hope 
And glory died on the shining slope. 

For it left its light on the hills and seas 
That run a thousand memories. 

— W. C. Gannett 



For Thy Good Cheer 119 



To-day is your day and mine, the only day we have, 
the day in which we play our part. What our part may 
signify in the great whole, we may not understand, but 
we are here to play it, and now is our time. This we 
know, it is a cynicism. It is for us to express love in 
terms of helpfulness. This we know, for we have 
learned from sad experience that any other source of 
life leads toward decay and waste. 

— David Starr Jordan. 



I20 For Thy Good Cheer 



Law is universal, absolute. Every effect has a cause. 
As we sow, we reap. Here are the simple facts of life. 
No striving, no effort of will or thought can escape 
them. We forget that the law of sowing and reaping 
appHes not merely to putting the hand into the fire, but 
to the thoughts, the spirit we send out into the world. 

— Dresser. 

We marvel that the silence can divide 
The living from the dead ; yet more apart 

Are they who all life long dwell side by side. 
But never heart by heart. 

— Florence D. Snelling. 

Let your speech be better than silence, or be silent. 

— Dionysius. 

Better make penitents by gentleness than hypocrites 
by severity. — St. Francis de Sales. 

One of the best methods of rendering study agree- 
able is to live with able men, and to suffer all those 
pangs of inferiority which the want of knowledge 
always inflicts. — Sydney Smith. 

We shall escape the up hill by never turning back. 

— Christina G. Rosetti. 



" So long as you can contribute to the pleasure, hap- 
piness, or comfort of any human being, you are of im- 
portance in the world, and no longer." 



For Thy Good Cheer 121 

I 've never any pity for conceited people, because I 
think they carry their comfort about with them. 

— George Eliot. 

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will 
be strong to live, as well as-to think. — Emerson. 

No religion is worth havin' unless a man sticks to 
it in a horse trade, or when he 's paintin' a barn ; and 
if a professor sands his sugar and waters his milk, he 's 
goin' to have a tough time when certain unfort'nate 
questions is asked by the Lord. 

— George Hepworth. 

"Do not let your hands get too soft, it might go to 
your brain." 

I do not know of any way so sure of making others 
happy as of being so one's self. 

— Sir Arthur Nelphs. 

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. Every 
opinion reacts on him who uttered it. You cannot do 
wrong without suffering wrong. 

— Emerson. 

The wise man will commit no business of import- 
ance to a proxy when he may do it himself. 

VEstrange. 



122 For Thy Good Cheer 



COURAGE. 

Be not discouraged with thy doubt, O soul : 
Perchance the hand of God it is that leads 
Thy faith to nobler creeds and broader trust. 
Part of thy manhood is to doubt and solve 
And rise to higher things. For cobwebs hang 
About the intellect as in a court 
But little used, and we must let the sun 
Pour in, and conquer mirk and mist and night. 
The creed thy father built, wherein his soul 
Did live and move and find its vital joy, 
May be but small to thee: then, without fear, 
Build o'er again the atrium of the soul 
So broad that all mankind may feast with thee. 
— William Ordway Partridge. 



For Thy Good Cheer 123 



HOPE EVERMORE, AND BELIEVE. 

Hope evermore and believe, O man! for, e'en as thy 
thought. 
So are the things that thou seest, e'en as thy hope 
and belief. 
Cowardly art thou, and timid? They rise to provoke 
thee against them. 
Hast thou courage? Enough! See them exulting to 
yield. 

Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars 
direct thee ; 
Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the 
earth. 
Not for the gain of the gold, for the getting, the hoard- 
ing, the having, 
But for the joy of the deed, but for the duty to do. 
Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and 
action ; 
With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the 
earth. 

Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy 

spirit 

Say to thyself : It is good ; yet is there better than it. 

This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little : 

Nevertheless, it is good, though there is better than 

it. — Arthur Hugh C lough. 



124 For Thy Good Cheer 



COMPENSATION. 

The universe pays every man in his own coin ; if you 
smile, it smiles upon you in return; if you frown, you 
will be frowned at ; if you sing, you will be invited into 
gay company ; if you think, you will be entertained by 
thinkers ; and if you love the world and earnestly seek 
for the good that is therein, you will be surrounded by 
loving friends, and nature will pour into your lap the 
treasures of the earth. Censure, criticise and hate, and 
you will be censured, criticised and hated by your fel- 
low men. Every seed brings forth after its kind. Mis- 
trust begets mistrust, jealousy begets jealousy, hatred 
begets hatred, and confidence begets confidence, kind- 
ness begets kindness, love begets love. Resist and you 
will be resisted. To meet the aggressive assault every 
entity rises up rigid and impenetrable — while yonder 
mountain of granite melts and floats away on the bosom 
of the river of love. — N. W. Zimmerman. 



For Thy Good Cheer 125 

One doth not know 
How much an ill word may empoison liking. 

— Shakespeare. 

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the 
pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the 
pathway of the strong. — Carlyle. 

I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy 
berth. To this I replied : "You cannot be an editor, 
do not try the law; do not think of the ministry, let 
alone all ships and merchandise ; abhor politics ; don't 
practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a 
sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are 
easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I 
know of only one easy place in it, and that is the 
grave!" — Henry Ward Beecher. 

It is just as easy to form a good habit as it is a bad 
one? And it is just as hard to break a good habit as a 
bad one? So get the good ones and keep them. 

— President McKinley. 

The strength of your life is measured by the strength 
of your will. But the strength of your will is just the 
strength of the wish that hes behind it. 

— Henry Van Dyke. 

It is not effort, but fruitless effort, which makes 
work distasteful ; and when we learn to use our powers 
rightly, we will go to our tasks as gladly as bees to 
their honey making. — Bishop J. L. Spaulding. 



126 For Thy Good Cheer 

I have never known a case of undiscovered merit, 
and I have never known a case where merit failed to 
achieve success. I have known many men gifted with 
great ability who failed miserably in life, but in every 
instance the failure arose from neglect to develop nat- 
ural talent into trained capacity. 

— Bourke Cochran. 

But try I ruge — the trying shall suffice ; 
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life. 

— Browning. 

*' When you hear of good in people, tell it ; 
When you hear a tale of evil — quell it." 

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; 
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it ; 
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. 
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, 
Begin, and then the work will be completed. 

— Goethe. 

We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if 
we waited for some better sympathy and intimacy to 
come. But whence and where? To-morrow will be 
like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing 
to live. — Emerson. 

That which is good to be done, cannot be done too 
soon ; and if it is neglected to be done early, it will fre- 
quently happen that it will not be done at all. 

— Bishop MauL 



For Thy Good Cheer 127 



MOTH EATEN. 

I had a beautiful garment 

And I laid it by with care ; 
I folded it close, with lavender leaves, 

In a napkin fine and fair. 
It 's far too costly a robe," I said, 
" For one like me to wear." 

So never at morn or evening 

I put my garment on; 
It lay by itself, under clasp and key. 

In the perfumed dusk alone-— 
Its wonderful broidery hidden 

Till many a day had gone. 

There were guests who came to my portal. 
There were friends who sat with me. 

And clad in soberest raimant 
I bore them company ; 

I knew I owned a beautiful robe, 
Though its splendor none might see. 



128 For ThyGood Cheer 



There were poor who stood at my portal, 
There were orphaned sought my care ; 

I give them the tenderest pity, 

But had nothing besides to spare; 

I had only the beautiful garment, 
And the raimant for daily wear. 

At last, on a feast day's coming, 

I thought in my dress to shine ; 
I would please myself with the luster 

Of its shifting colors fine ; 
I would walk with pride in the marvel 

Of its rarely rich design. 

So out of the dust I bore it — 

The lavender fell away — 
And fold on fold I held it up 

To the searching light of day, 
Alas ! the glory had perished 

While there in its place it lay. 

Who seeks for the fadeless beauty 
Must seek for the use that it seals. 

To the grace of a constant blessing, 
The beauty that use reveals, 

For into the folded robe alone 
The moth with its blighting steals. 

— Margaret E. Sangster, 



For Thy Good Cheer 129 



A FROWN AND A SMILE. 

Such a silly little, foolish, naughty little frown — 
Too small to do the slightest harm, you'd think. 

Yet the naughty little frown frowned the nursery 
pleasures down. 
And made a pleasant room as black as ink. 

Nurse scolded — Jamie sighed — 

Kitten ran and baby cried — 
(You scarcely can believe it, but it 's true). 

Every smile was blotted out 

With that naughty frown about — 
Just think how much a little frown can do ! 

Such a pleasant little, happy little, jolly little smile — 
Too small to do the slightest good, you'd say. 

Yet that happy little smile kept the nursery all the while 
As cheerful as the sunshine and as gay. 

Nurse was singing like a bird — 

Baby cooed and kitten purred — 
(You scarcely can believe it, but it 's true), 

Everywhere that small smile went 

It brought pleasure and content — 
Just think how much a little smile can do ! 

— Theodosia P. Garrison, 



130 For Thy Good Cheer 

Guard well thy words — 
How else can thou be master of thyself? 
Well-poised and courteous speech can make thee king 
Among thy fellow men. 
Keep watch upon thyself 

And govern well thy lips as doors unto a treasure- 
house, 
That nothing may be stolen from thee unawares 
By sudden moods. — Mabel Percy Haskell. 

Just take hold of the first thing that comes in your 
way. If the Lord's got anything bigger to give you, 
He will see to it. — A. D. A. Whitney. 

And as the path of duty is made plain, 
May grace be given that I may walk therein, 
Not like the hierling for his selfish gain. 
With backward glances and reluctant tread. 
Making a merit of his coward dread, — 
But cheerful in the light around me thrown. 
Walking as one to pleasant service led ; 
Doing God's will as if it were my own, 
Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone! 

— Whittier. 

"A little thing, a sunny smile, 

A loving word at morn. 

And all day long the day shone bright. 
The cares of life were made more light. 

And sweetest hopes were born." 



For Thy Good Cheer 131 



Do you think that because you have tried once and 
failed you cannot succeed. There is no condition that 
you cannot overcome. — Margaret Stowe. 

To live with a high ideal is a successful life. It is 
not what one does, but what one tries to do, that makes 
the soul strong and fit for a noble career. 

— E. P. Tenney. 

"Women ofttimes take life too seriously ; they are op- 
pressed by wrongs for which they are not responsible, 
and take burdens which justly belong to the creator." 

It is the great boon of such characters as Mr. Lin- 
coln's that they re-unite what God has joined together 
and man has put asunder. In him was vindicated the 
greatness of real goodness, and the goodness of real 
greatness. — Phillips Brooks. 

Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, 

Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her. 

Swift willed is thrice-willed; late means never more; 

Impatient is her foot, nor turns again. — Lowell. 

The incomparable advantage of things long looked 
for — ^things for the lack of which, so to speak, a pigeon- 
hole in the mind has stood vacant. Blessed are they who 
want something for when they get it, they will be glad. 

— Bradford Torrey. 



132 For Thy Good Cheer 



Be done with saying what you don't believe, and 
find somewhere or other the truest, divinest thing to 
your soul that you do believe today, and work that out 
in all the action and consecration of the soul in the 
doing of your work. — Phillips Brooks, 

"The way to keep a man out of the mud is to black 
his boots," once said Frederick Douglass. The man 
with soiled shoes does not care where he walks. 

There are nettles everywhere. 
But smooth green grasses are more common still; 
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 

— E. B. Browning, 

What to us is gibe or frown? 
What have we to cast us down? 
Soul! Arise! assume thy crown; 
Turn thy features from the wall. 
Make thy stature proud and tall 
See; The Lord is over all. 

— .Richard Realf, 



For Thy Good Cheer 133 



"I know a place where the sun is like gold 

And the cherry blooms burst with snow; 

And down underneath is the loveliest nook, 

Where the four-leaved clovers grow. 

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, 

And one is for love, you know, 

And God put another one in for luck. 

If you search you will find where they grow. 

But you must have hope, and you must have faith, 

You must have love and be strong, and so 

If you work, if you wait, you will find the place, 

Where the four-leaf clovers grow." 

It was the little leaves beside the road. 

Said Grass, "What is that sound 
So dismally profound. 

That detonates and desolates the air?" 
"That is St. Peter's bell," 
Said rain-wise Pimpernell; 
He is music to the godly. 
Though to us he sounds so oddly. 

And he terrifies the faithful into prayer." 



134 For Thy Good Cheer 



Then something very Hke a groan 
Escaped the naughty Httle leaves. 

Said Grass, "And whither track 
These creatures all in black, 

So wobegone and penitent and meek?" 
''They're mortals bound for church," 
Said the little Silver Birch ; 
''They hope to get to heaven 
And have their sins forgiven, 

If they talk to God about it once a week." 

And something very like a smile 
Ran through the naughty little leaves. 

Said Grass, "What is that noise 

That startles and destroys 

Our blessed summer brooding when we're tired? 

"That's folks a-praising God," 

Said the tough old cynic Clod ; 

"They do it every Sunday, 

They'll be all right on Monday ; 

It's just a little habit they've acquired." 

And laughter spread among the little leaves. 

— Bliss Carman. 



For Thy Good Cheer 135 



Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

Where the race of men go by — 
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are 
strong 

Wise, foohsh — so am I. 
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat 

Or hurl the cynic's ban? 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

— Sam Walter Foss. 

"Give to the world the best that you have, and the 
best will come back to you." 

I see in the world two heaps, one of human happiness 
and one of misery ; now, if I can take but the smallest 
bit from the second heap and add to the first, I carry a 
point. If, as I go home, a child has dropped a half- 
penny, and if, by giving it another, I can wipe away its 
tear, I feel that I have done something. I should be 
glad indeed, to do great things, but I will not neglect 
such little ones as these. — John Newton. 

I feel more pity for the people who have waited on 
the bank and caught cold in their hearts and souls 
through standing still too long, than with those who 
have been bruised and buffetted by the full force of the 
stream. — Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, 



136 For Thy Good Cheer 



"If we give all we have, and do all we can, and yet 
think unkindly, it profits us nothing. Our thoughts 
mould our life, because life and thought are one." 

Living will teach you how to live better than 
preacher or book. — Goethe. 

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is 
of you. — Emerson. 

''Refinement is more a spirit than an accomplishment. 
All the books of etiquette that have ever been written 
cannot make a person refined. True refinement springs 
from a gentle, unselfish heart. Without a fine spirit 
a refined life is impossible." 

Think of yourself, therefore, nobly, and you will 
live nobly. You will realize on earth that type of char- 
acter and faith which is the highest ideal of philoso- 
pher and hero and saint. — Charles W. Wendte. 

The sane, strong, brave, heroic souls of all ages were 
the men who, in the natural order of things, have lived 
above all considerations of pay or glory. They have 
served not as slaves hoping for reward, but as gods 
who would take no reward. — David Starr Jordan. 



For Thy Good Cheer 137 



Let us pity these poor rich men, who live barrenly 
in great bookless houses ! Let us congratulate the poor 
that, in our day, books are so cheap that a man may 
every year add a hundred volumes to his library for 
for the price of what his tobacco and beer would cost 
him. Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in 
clerks, workmen, journeymen, and, indeed, among all 
that are struggling up in life from nothing to some- 
thing, is that of owning and constantly adding to a li- 
brary of good books. A library is not a luxury, but 
one of the neccessaries of life. 

— Henry Ward Beecher. 



138 For Thy Good Cheer 



The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It 
softens asperities, bridges chasms, draws together 
hands and hearts. The forms which it takes in the 
world are infinite in number; but never does it seem 
to us more admirable than when it shows itself across 
the fatal barriers of position, interest, or prejudice, 
overcoming the greatest obstacles, permitting those 
whom everything seems to separate to understand one- 
another, esteem one-another, love one-another. This is 
the true social cement that goes into the building of a 
people. — Charles Wagner. 

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades 
greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of 
better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in 
the present always and took advantage of every acci- 
dent that befell us, like the grass which confesses the 
influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did 
not spend our time in atoning for neglect of past op- 
portunities, which we call doing our duty. • 

— Thoreau. 

"Room for the Christ-child, room! 
Room for the Light in the wintry gloom, 
Where man's distrust and his greed for gain 
Have frozen the floods of tender rain, 
Till never a flower of hope can bloom. 

Room for the Christ-child, room I" 



For Thy Good Cheer 139 



THE CHOICE. 

Only so much of power each day 

So much nerve force brought in play; 

If it goes for politics or trade, 

Ends gained or money made, 

You have it not for the soul and God 

The Choice is yours to sow or plod, 

So much water in the rill; 

It may go to turn the miller's wheel, 

Or sink in the desert, or flow on free 

To brighten its banks in meadows green 

'Till broadening out, fair fields between. 

It streams to the moon-enchanted sea, 

Only so little power each day ; 

Week by week days slide away; 

E're the life goes what shall it be 

A trade — a game — a mockery 

Or the gate of a rich eternity ? 

— Edward Roland Sill. 



140 For Thy Good Cheer 

Earth and probably heaven, has nothing better to 
offer us than that thrill, which runs through us when 
we catch fleeting glimpses of the Beautiful and the 
True, and rise superior for the time being to all that 
is sordid and cowardly and mean. For the moment we 
are "pure in heart and see God." 

— Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. 
Trust in thine own untried capacity — 
Some feet will tread all heights now unattained 
Why not thine own ? — Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

The function of culture is not merely to train the 
powers of enjoyment, but first and supremely for help- 
ful service. — Bishop Potter. 

Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on 
what it was lived for. — David Starr Jordan. 

Don't be gazing at the mountain and river in the 
distance, and saying, " How shall I ever get over them ? 
When you come to the mountain and the river you 
will come to the light and strength that belong to them. 

— M. A. Kelty, 

O March that blusters and March that blows, 
What color under your footsteps glows, 
Beauty you summon from Winter snows, 
And you are the pathway that leads to the rose. 

— Celia Thaxter, 



For Thy Good Cheer 141 



Remember that there is one thing better than mak- 
ing a living — making a life. — Governor Russell. 



142 For Thy Good Cheer 



The little I have seen of the world teaches me to 
look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. 
When I take the history of one poor heart that has 
sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the 
struggles and temptations it has passed through, the 
brief pulsation of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope 
and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, 
I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow man 
with Him from whose hand it came. — Longfellow. 

I hold not with the pessimist that all things are ill, 
nor with the optimist that all things are well. All 
things are not ill, and all things are not well, but all 
things shall be well, because this is God's world. 

— Robert Browning. 

"Pessimism is waste of force — the penalty of one 
who knows not how to live." 

Hath any wronged thee ? Be bravely revenged ; 
slight it, and the work is begun; forgive it, and it is 
finished. — Quarles. 

"The poem hangs on the berry bush 
When comes the poet's eye. 
And the whole street is a masquerade 
When Shakespeare passes by." 



For Thy Good Cheer 143 



Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. 
More is got from one book on which the thought settles 
for definite end in knowledge, than from libraries 
skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower 
gives honey to the bee, a king's garden none to the 
butterfly. — Edward Bulwer. 

Try it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself 
in an easy and cheerful frame of mind. Compare the 
day in which you have rooted out the weed of dissatis- 
faction with that on which you have allowed it to grow 
up, and you will find your heart open to every good 
motive, your life strengthened and your breast armed 
with a panoply against every trick of fate; truly, you 
will wonder at your own improvement. — Richter. 

Stay at home in your mind: 
Don't recite other people's opinions. 

— Emerson. 

Who brings sunshine into the life of another has sun- 
shine in his own. — David Starr Jordan. 

''What right have you, O passer-by-the-way, to call 
any flower a weed ? Do you know its merits, its virtues, 
its healing qualities ? Because a thing is common shall 
you despise it? If so, you might despise the sunshine 
for the same reason." 



144 For Thy Good Cheer 

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the 
ability to forget is a token of greatness. 

— Elbert Hubbard. 

The individuals whose lives are really valuable never 
ask any one how to make them so. 

— Marie Corelli. 

All history bears witness that when God means to 
make a great man, He puts the circumstances of the 
world and the lives of lesser men under tribute. . . 
All earnest, pure, unselfish, faithful men who have lived 
their obscure lives well, have helped to make him. 

— Phillips Brooks. 

"Counting the days till Christmas! 

Sweet days of tender care 
That loved ones may on the blessed morn 

Find longed for treasures fair. 
Thus dreaming, hoping and waiting, 

That holiest day draws near 
When 'Peace on earth, good will to men^ 

Ring out the joy-bells clear." 

" 'T is not the weight of jewel or plate 
Or the fondle of silk or fur; 

'T is the spirit in which the gift is rich. 
As the gifts of the wise ones were : 
And we are not told whose gift was gold, 
Or whose was the gift of myrrh." 



For Thy Good Cheer 145 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 

God rest ye, merry gentlemen ; let nothing you dismay, 
For Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. 
The dawn rose red o'er Bethlehem, the stars shone 

through the gray. 
When Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. 
God rest ye, little children; let nothing you afright. 
For Jesus Christ, your Savior, was born this happy 

night ; 
Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay, 
When Christ, the child of Nazareth, was born on 

Christmas day. 
God rest ye, all good Christians; upon this blessed 

morn 
The Lord of all Good Christians was of a woman born ; 
Now all your sorrows he doth heal ; your sins He takes 

away, 
For Jesus Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas 

day. — Dinah Mulock Craik. 



146 For Thy Good Cheer 

When our world learns this lesson — when every 
child is reverenced as a royal heir of heaven because 
it is a brother of the Christ Child, then a great light 
will lighten the nations. — Henry Van Dyke. 

''A wise old German said : 'I likes to give villingly ; 
ven I gives villingly, it enjoys me so much, I gives it 
again/ " 

We are encompassed about by the forces that make 
for righteousness. All power we possess, or seem to 
possess comes from our accord with these forces. 
There is no lasting force except the power of God. 

— David Starr Jordan. 

The effective appeal to-day is not addressed to the 
selfish desire for personal advantage as a result of re- 
ligious effort, but to the sure prospect that a man of 
God can serve his day and generation more widely, 
deeply and permanently than a godless man. 

— Rev. Charles R. Brown. 

"There are some people who turn gray, but who do 
not grow hoary, whose faces are furrowed, but not 
wrinkled, whose hearts are sore wounded in many 
places, but are not dead. There is a youth that bids 
defiance to age and there is a kindness which laughs at 
the world's rough usage. There are they who have re- 
turned good for evil, not having learned it as a lesson 
of righteousness, but because they have no evil in them 
to return upon others. " 



For Thy Good Cheer 147 



What is Home? 

"Where each lives for the other and all for God." 

Helen L. Mattingly. 

In the long run all goodly sorrow pays ; 

There is no better thing than righteous pain ; 
The sleepless nights, the awful thorn-crowned days, 

Bring sure reward to tortured soul and brain. 
Unmeaning joys enervate in the end, 
But sorrow yields a glorious dividend, 
In the long run. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 

Friends give flowers 

To mark the hours 
Of changing seasons as they roll — 

Thoughts we give. 

By them we live, 
And thoughts are blossoms of the soul. 

— M, A. E. Benton. 



148 For Thy Good Cheer 



GOODBY. 

Bid me goodby! No sweeter salutation 

Can friendship claim, 
Nor yet can any language, any nation, 

A sweeter frame. 

It is not final ; it forebodes no sorrow, 

As some declare 
Who, born to fretting, are so prone to borrow 

To-morrow's share. 

"Goodby" is but a prayer, a benediction 

From lips sincere. 
And breathed by thine it brings a sweet conviction 
That God will hear. 

"Goodby!" Yes, "God be with you!" prayer and 
blessing 

In simplest phrase. 
Alike our need and his dear care confessing 

In all our ways. 

However rare or frequent be our meeting, 

However nigh 
The last long parting or the endless greeting, 

Bid me goodby! 

— Harriet McEwen Kimball. 



For Thy Good Cheer 149 



Here then we rest ; not fearing for our creed 
The worst that human reasoning can achieve. 
To unsettle or perplex it; . . . 
Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer 
A stream, which, from the fountain of the heart 
Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows 
Without access of unexpected strength. 
These helps solicit ; and a steadfast seat 
Shall then be yours among the happy few 
Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air 
Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air. 
Sons of the morning. — Wordsworth 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



PAGE 

Abbott, Dr. Lyman 19 

Allen, Alice E 26 

Ames, Charles G 41 

Amiel 102, 104 

Auerbach 34 

Aurelius, Marcus 36 

Balzac 64 

Barrows, Samuel J 85 

Beecher, Henry Ward 11, 71, 124, 136 

Bennett, H. H 52 

Benton, M. A. E 5, 146 

Brooks, Phillips 19, 24, 56, 70, 103, 130, 131, 143 

Black no 

Borle 28 

Bronte, Charlotte 55 

Brooke, Spofford in 

Brown, Barnetta 57 

Brown, Chas. R. 145 

Browning, Robert 3i» 44, 59, 100, 106, 125, 141 

Browning, E. B 131 

Bulwer, Edward 30, 142 

Bunner, H. C 38, 39 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson 37 

Butts, Mary F , 82 

Carlyle, Thomas 40, 107, no, 124 

Carey, Alice 67 



Index to Authors 151 



PAGE 

Carman, Bliss 132, 133 

Carruth, William Herbert 10 

Cato 106 

Chesterfield, Lord 71 

Childs, Lydia Maria 69 

Cleveland, Grover 90 

Clough, Arthur Hugh 122 

Cockran, Bourke 125 

Corelli, Marie 143 

Craik, Dinah Mulock 144 

Daniels, E. J 56 

Descartes 104 

Dickens 84 

Dickinson, Emily 96 

Dinsmore, E. J 46 

Dionysius 119 

Disraeli, Benjamin, 30 

Dresser, ^7, 35, 104, iii, 119 

Eliot, George 23, 27, 76, 120 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.. 16, 41, 53, 54, 65, 71, 73, 81, 120, 125, 
135, 142. 

Epictetus 64, 75 

Everest, Flora G. 12 

Ferguson, Charles 59 

Fichte, 30 

Foss, Sam Walter 134 

Fowler, Ellen Thorneycroft. . . 19, 25, 40, 59, 87, 97, 109, 134, I39 

Franklin, Benjamin 9S> 106 

Frick, Rhoda Tucker 



152 Index to Authors 



PAGE 

Frothingham, N. L 87 

Gannett, W. C 117 

Garrison, Theodosia P 128 

Gilpin 103 

Goethe 34, 59, 77, 80, 104, no, 125, 135 

Grand, Sarah 90 

Hadley, Arthur T 89 

Hale, Edward Everett 75, 82, 93 

Hardy, Irene 10 

Hardy, Thomas 2>'^ 

Haskell, Mabel Percy 129 

Hepworth, George 120 

Herbert, George c 80 

Hereward, L 108 

Hindoo Sayings 80 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 87 

Howells, William Dean 2)^ 

Hosmer, F. L 10, 42, 43 

Hubbard, Elbert 77, 143 

Huxley 90 

Ingelow, Jean 85 

Irving, Washington 56 

Jackson, Helen Hunt 49 

Jelf- Sharp, C 72 

Jordan, David Starr 7, 17, 27, 30, 85, 118, 135, 139, 142, 145 

Jowett 90 

Kelly, 139 



Index to Authors 153 



PAGE 

Kimball, Harriet McEwen I47 

Kingsland, Burton 80 

Kingsley, Charles no 

Klingle, George 31 

Knapp, Adeline 59 

Lanier, Sidney 51, 81 

L'Estrange 120 

La Rochefoucauld 115 

Lincoln, Abraham 93 

Livermore, Mary A 83 

Locke 92 

Longfellow 48, 75, 141 

Longfellow, Samuel 22 

Lowell, James Russell 30, 65, "j"], 130 

Lytton, Lord (Buwer) 16 

Mabie, Hamilton Wright 49, 70, 81, 86, 97, 103, 107 

Macdonald, George 17, 68 

Maeterlink, Maurice 40 

Mann, Horace 104 

Markham, Edwin. . , 32, 33, 93 

Mattingly, Helen L 146 

Maut, Bishop 125 

McKinley, William 18, 124 

McLean, J. K 19 

McNutt, George L 97 

Miller, Joaquin 83 

Miller, J. R 64 

Moore, Dorothea 87 

Murdock, Charles A 54 

Nelphs, Sir Arthur 120 



154 Index to Authors 



PAGE 

Newcomb, C. B ii, 64 

Newton, John 134 

Osgood 62, 63 

Partridge, William Ordway 121 

Peabody, Ephraim. 23 

Philemon 36 

Phillpotts, Eden 90 

Plato 13 

Poor Robin, A. D., 1710 58 

Potter, Bishop 139 

Quarles 141 

Quigley 23 

Ram's Horn 107 

Realf, Richard 34, 131 

Reid, Whitelaw 29 

Richter 142 

Riley, James Whitcomb 9, 45 

Ritter, Mary L 53 

Roberts, Charles G. D 94 

Rollins, Alice Wellington 92 

Rosetti, Christina G 119 

Roosevelt, Theodore 56, 80 

Ruskin 19, 75 

Russell, Governor 140 

St. Bernard 97 

Sangster, Margaret E 126, 127 

Savage, M. J 34 



Index to Authors 155 



PAGE 

Scandinavian Edda 40 

Schiller, 23 

Scollard, Clinton 2)7 

Seneca 73 

Shakespeare 13, 54, 124 

Sherman, Frank Dempster 49 

Shurtleff, William S 36 

Sill, Edward Roland 'jd, 138 

Smith, Sydney 16, 119 

Snelling, Florence D 119 

Soulsby, Lucy H. M 45 

Spaulding, J. L 15, 46, 124 

Spencer, Edmund 27 

Spurgeon 16 

Stanton, Frank L 99 

Stevenson, Robert Louis 48, 107, 115 

Story, W. W 14 

Stowe, Margaret 105, no, 130 

Sweet, Ada C 103, 107 

Swing, David 98 

Tabb, John B 115 

Tenney, E. P 130 

Tennyson, Alfred 56 

Thackeray 19 

Thaxter, Celia 17, 139 

Thompson, Elizabeth Ballard 78, 79 

Thoreau, H. D 76, m, I37 

Torrey, Bradford 130 

Trine, Ralph Waldo 30, 36 

Van Dyke, Henry 46, 115, 124, 145 



156 Index to Authors 

PAGE 

Van Ness, Thomas 11 

Voltaire 23 

Wagner, Charles 40, 137 

Wheeler, Benjamin Ide 58, 87 

Wells, Kate G 83 

Wendte, Charles W 135 

White, Blanco 105 

Whitman, Walt 65, 92 

Whitney, A. D. T 73, 85, 129 

Whittier, John Greenleaf 30, (i^j, yy, 129 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler. .20, 21, 45, 50, 95, loi, 102, iii, 139, 146 

Willard, Francis 51 

Wilson, Woodrow 103 

Wiggins, Kate Douglass 83 

Wordsworth 48, 148 

Young, 106 

Zimmerman, N. W 123 j 



MAR 18 1903 



V.,. 




027 249J56 1 



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